Review > DRCC > BFD's

The Detroit Rock Climbing Company, or the DRCC are new... how new? Well we're the first people to get their holds in Canada, these guys despite the fact that they've been in the climbing world in different capacities for years have only had holds on the market for a very very short period of time. I've been talking to Vince for a long while, since I found their site, I've been a real pain asking when they were launching, asking for sneak peaks of holds and generally making a nusience of myself :) Well once they launched and got some holds out the door a package arrived... a package that i've been looking forward to seeing... Welcome the DRCC's BFD's

From left to right we have: BFD Crimps, BFD: Edges & the BFD Sloper, together these holds are the Divoted Series... and we've been having some fun, well I was having fun listening to Chris hit the deck on the last move for a few hours... man that last move on the route I set stopped all of us for a while there, until you figure out where you feet want to be, where your hands need to be and you just crank up and catch the last hold... watch the video and enjoy our pain for a few minutes!

Ok so I set an interesting route, I was trying to make it harder than it had to be... I made sure there were some nice balancy moves, some power moves and a stinker of a final move :) Overall I don't think that we've had a route that's stopped us for most of a session in a while, it was part holds and part setting that caused this :D But that aside, these are nice holds.. the texture is super good for your skin, the shapes are friendly and the rubber backing means that they sit super flush to the wall!

There's not a great deal (if anything) that you can say about the shapes from the DRCC that is bad, or could be contrived as being bad... we looked and looked, had a few beers and thought about it and came up with nothing...... THAT is surprising for us, just as surprising as the shapes themselves. There are enough holds in the range to make even hardcore hold freaks happy, and when you look at this you're going to get excited.







A dog is a mans best friend, slopers are a climbers best friend.. we keep saying it, infact we say it so much we probably sound like a broken record! So one more time, for the cheap seats... slopers will make you strong and won't wreck your fingers!
The BFD slope is a beast, super hard to hold onto on a vertical wall and then flip it and it puts your route / move up about a grade... yup, V2 to V3 with the turn of a wrench and a spin of a hold! On anything past 30 degrees over we're having trouble holding on, but trial and error (plus the new 45 wall we're building) will see us conquer this hold on steep terrain! This hold is all about where you place your fingers, and how good your core tension is.. you'll get a workout, it's not what we'd call a "beginners" sloper (I'd err more towards the BFD Edges), but if you love the slopers then you'll love this one aswell... it's just haarder than most!






Edges is an interesting term for these holds!! They are edges, but really big edges with big smooth radii, I'd call them slopers.... These guys will take you all the way to 45 degrees, and if you're super super strong past it into the really steep terrain! The holds are primarily flat, but we think they're reall nice friendly beginner style slopers (you can match most of them), don't get us wrong they're amazing edges aswell. They're going to be easy going on a vertical wall, and then the going (as you can see from the video) get's really interesting on a 30 degree overhang, see everyone hitting the floor on the last few moves of the route, that's these edges for you... super fun climbing, super interesting move and yet our fingers don't complain! Now if you want to make life really hard, turn the holds upside down (from the obvious grabbing area) and see what happens.... brutally hard to hold :)





If these are crimps then this is the way holds for indoor walls should be made from now on in... I don't think I saw one person crimp on these holds, not one... they're more openhanded then you'd expect rather than bear down super hard and tweak your fingers! There isn't a sharp edge on these holds anywhere... not one... some sides are flat, some sides are slopey, but always with a nice rounded edge so you can position your hand whereever you want! We think that these are more sloping edges than anything else, they're so well designed and shaped that if you really want to you could crimp on them, but as they're so comfortable you'll just open hand them. These guys double as some pretty fun pinches, we've had them all over the place and they double / triple as slopers / pinches and edges depending upon which way you turn them.... it's a three for one! You'll be able to haul to 30 degrees over without too much trouble, but once you hit the 45 over you're going to want to have the hold rotated to the most positive side :D



EVE
"Put yo' hands up fo' Detroit....I luv this city!" No but seriously, good job! These hold are loads of fun. Challenging yea, but not impossible! First of all they are absolutely beautiful, inside and out, with cute colors and fun features. Actually, the features are a bit deceptive. Some look like obvious 'finger grooves' but once on the wall, are absolutely useless! Fun! Secondly, they feel nice. Not too rough, and honestly nothing very realistic but hey, if you want rocks, go outside! Lol! So yeah, Detroit's new line is a pleasure to climb with, but I don't think it's for beginners....well not if you want them to like rock climbing! Like I've said they are slightly deceptive, so I think a minimum of technique is required to get anywhere with them.