WORLD FIRST Life-size Bouldering Replica

We were recently invited by Quartzsite boulders to be some of the first climbers to try out their gym rhino. This video is sponsored by Squarespace. Hello everyone, welcome back to another video and a fairly different video. Today we are at the boardroom climbing on the Welsh border near Chester and we are going outdoor bouldering but in an indoor gym. This boulder behind me has been developed using 3D printing technology and it is an exact replica of the rhino boulder in Rockland, South Africa. What is really interesting about this boulder is that you can modify the grade by changing out the holds. The original rhino boulder is graded at 7b plus which is a v8 but this can be downgraded all the way to b2 and it's a lot more accessible if you're not climbing v8 yet. So the plan for this video is Nathan and I, Nathan is behind the camera, are gonna try the boulder and yeah just have a real novel experience I feel in an outdoor bouldering session but in an indoor gym setting which I feel is going to be a really interesting blend. We'll give you some insights along the way. With any boulder project indoors or outside, the first few goes always feel exploratory but they did on the gym rhino especially. I think because of the steep 90 degree angle, climbing became pretty disorienting fairly quickly and I became acutely aware in the first few attempts that this would be a boulder centred around good footwork and trying to keep my heels and toes from cutting loose. On my following goes I managed to find a right toe hook on the face of the boulder which became actually a really important part of the process further down the line. I still definitely felt a little without a plan and this is overall something that I definitely need to work on with my climbing to conserve energy as I climb. There's a lot of things that go into outdoor climbing that make it the experience that it is. You've got things like exposure, you don't have gym matting, you're placing your own matting, your fall might be slightly different so I think what's fascinating is that this really is a kind of like meet in the middle of like indoor bouldering, indoor gym bouldering and outdoor rock climbing which is just is blowing my mind. Do you know what's also really weird? I don't think I've ever, actually no that's a lie, I have looked at beta videos for indoor bouldering but you know like when you go on a climbing trip and you get up your phone you look at like beta videos for the Rhino. Like we can do that on this. Mind blown. Okay might be time for the heel. I've given in. So I've tried it a few times with the holds that Courtney has on it and what's happening every single time practically, that was the best attempt I've had yet, is I'm putting the toe on this hold here. Am I right in thinking this is the hold that's on Rhino? Yes, nearly. Okay so yeah I'm trying to get a toe hook in this and then go out to like this right hand which is also the 3D printed hold with a right foot on like a really nice positive ear but I'm just finding that I'm then quite horizontal and as soon as I take the hand off I just kind of sag. So we're bringing in this which is the V5-ish hold type version of the toe hook. So we're going to replace, you can see the way this will slot into the the wall, we're going to replace this hold with this one. The idea being that I'll then be able to either get a much better toe or quite a solid heel. So that's the plan. I've got a lot resting in this hold. Thank you. Being able to project an outdoor ball there but switch out the holds when you need to make the crooks easier is something that you never have the luxury of doing. I think it's just going to be such an interesting projecting process. My first go with the downgraded holds didn't go exactly to plan and I got a little bit lost and crossed my hands a little bit too much. Feels different every time. Hmm the heel's definitely better, the green heel. That's helping. This big, this here, yeah. Oh that looks nice. That does look nice. But it's already downgraded. Okay I think I am going to take the yellow but I'm not going to take it right now. I think that big swing is to be avoided at all costs. So it's change time again. We're going for a slightly bigger hold on the big move out left. I think just to give me a bit of confidence to actually go for it off that heel. But I must say I'm really enjoying this process of being able to downgrade my projects until I can climb them. Imagine if you could just go outside and make it like a little bit easier every time until you could send it and then you could like work your way back up. Yeah I think I've managed to clean up my first sequence, like I know what I'm doing now which is gonna help hopefully. And then I think I know what I'm hoping to do with the next sequence so that's a start. Whereas previously on this I kind of wasn't sure which method I wanted to go for yet. So hopefully this could be the send go because I think we're running out of downgrades. But yeah I wouldn't, I'm not sure what current grade but there's a little grading system over there so maybe Nathan can go and set it for me and not be too harsh. Maybe a little lower. It could be a little bit like that. So before we get into the rest of the video I wanted to have a quick word from the sponsor of today's video which is Squarespace. I have been using Squarespace for years to host my online blog and more recently I have been using Squarespace to build a online storefront so that you can purchase physical Hannah Morris bouldering products. I've been teasing this for the longest time but in October it's actually happening. In the run-up to launch creating a really beautiful online presence was something that was really important to Nathan and I. What I love about Squarespace is that you don't need years of coding experience or any design experience. You can pick from a host of templates and arrive at a end product that looks like a professional has designed it. So if that sounds like something that you would be interested in trying out for yourself, perhaps you have some physical or digital products that you would like to start selling in a beautiful online store, then head over to www.squarespace.com forward slash Hannah Morris and then when you are ready to launch use the unique code Hannah Morris for 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Then what do you do? Something I often like to do when I'm projecting a boulder is to try the crooks or in this case one of the many crooks and build around having executed those moves so that I go into my eventual send attempt. Knowing what to expect and knowing that I have a plan for when I get there. For this move I knew that the throw out to the left would feel quite big so I wanted to have a go before my eventual send attempt just to check that I could make the move and that it wasn't a move that I needed to work on before I went for a send attempt. It goes! That's going to be really interesting to see if I can do that move after having done the start. I think you got it, I think you need the rest. I think you're right. With me needing to recover a little longer Nathan had a few attempts on the boulder and interestingly Nathan climbed the boulder really differently making use of some high heel hooks that I hadn't really considered from the original lino along the right hand face. Gone. Do you feel the wind blowing up at you? How is that? Yeah it's really sick. Does it feel like topping out an outside boulder? Yeah it really does. Yeah. It's still super bumpy though but yeah tidy it up I think add a few hard holds in which is really cool. You still need to find the easy. Yeah that's mega. Right okay so this at the moment the hold that I'm going for with my right hand is it's big and it's positive but it's not as big and as positive as this. So this if we wanted to make what we've got going on behind me a little bit easier we might switch it through for this one or let me go and grab that one over there that's a good comparison actually. So this probably explains it a little bit better. This is the same hold slot but in two different varieties so that would be like the easy version which is like really positive like you might find a jug in the gym and then as a comparison I'm supposed to be resting as a comparison you have this one which would be the harder version which you can see is less positive but still quite nice still nicer than what's on the wall currently but I'm going to stick with what's on the wall currently because I think at like this point it's really just a case of like revision and focus and maybe managing fatigue. So I've had a big rest and a strong coffee and I'm coming back to it hopefully a little bit fresher and try and see it off. I've done it in two halves, two halves? I've done it in two halves. That's just an endurance thing I think maybe and also remembering my beta that's going to be important. As you can see I did not remember my beta and I ended up spending a lot of energy trying to get that right toe to stick along that right side. With energy and short supply I did try to whack a right heel in which did feel fairly good but ended up setting me up a little oddly for the That toe will not stick. Which one? That toe every time you moved your hand it was like... The right one? Yeah. Yeah. I'm so tired. That was progress though. I'll take that. Always take a bit of progress. From this angle you get a lot better of a feel for the holds on the opposite face and also a bit better of an idea of that left heel though I still am really struggling to make that right toe stick. I can't get it to stick to save my life. You're getting frustrated now. I need to find my zen. We're changing it again. We're going to swap out the right hand hold for the kind of intermediate version, this green, which is a lot more positive a So this is the hold that's come out. You can kind of see if I put my hand in at that angle, like it's good and it does have space that you can get your fingers around on the inside but I would say about this, this is a lot more true to rock so like there's some divots in here that kind of stack your fingers in a slightly weird way whereas that one is a lot more rounded. Hopefully I won't have to think so much about placement or the direction of pull. I can just kind of take it as given that once I'm there I can like use it to its full potential. I think this is okay but I am struggling so I want something okayer. One thing I would say is similar, climbing this and climbing outside, is that I'm getting frustrated in a way that I don't typically indoors. Maybe that's normally because I'm like around people indoors and I can't let loose with my like angry side but it definitely exists. It definitely could come out but this is going to be my actual last go because you know sometimes you know that you're still making marginal gains on a route. That's not happening anymore, I'm just kind of getting frustrated and going backwards. So last go, full focus, but what's changed, it has been downgraded again. So now the green match rail, like midway through before you set out to go for the big leftwards move, is now a little bit nicer. I'm just going to give it a go, still exactly the same story with the toes, like just cannot keep them on. Definitely something I need to work on. So technical knee that was not elegant. Maybe my biggest session ever, yeah. Not far off. I can't imagine, I can't think of any other time that I've gotten so gripped by a climb. Thank you. Now it's time for the real deal. Rhino with all of the super high resolution, like exact models of the hold on the real climb from Rockland, South Africa. And it's weird because you kind of know the moves but not the holds. It's funny because now you start questioning, I actually thought the beta you would get locked down from the easier version, but some of the subtle changes actually start making you question the beta. That's what I said about the green hill, it changed the rest of the secret of it. It suddenly makes you think some things aren't as possible. Gym Rhino is going on a European tour after the boardroom, so if you'd like to make any enquiries, perhaps you'd like to see it come to your climbing wall so you can have a go, or you work at a climbing gym and you would love to have the Gym Rhino come to you. You can find links to the courtside enquiry page in the description of this video, so make sure you do check them out. Come on, you got it. Yeah. Come on, yes. Let's go. More, more, more. Yeah. Well done. Very impressive. Cruised it. Completely different beta. Oh, so then you've got to take another cut. OK. I think I've probably not got enough for a full send, but I definitely want to come back. So I'm just going to put a little bit of work into this trickiest section to find the most efficient way. Should I go for it? Leave that heel on for the entire problem. It's so hard to take it off. It's so good. Absolutely toasted. But yeah, like an outdoor climb, but in an indoor setting. So we're invited down here today by Courtside Boulders, so I want to say a big thank you to them for inviting us down and bringing our attention to this concept. We were like the first people to have a go at it. One of the first YouTubers to have a go at it, which feels like an honour. And yeah, we had a really good time, so thank you very much to them. Thank you Boardroom. Thank you to Boardroom. Thank you Mum. Thank you very much everyone for watching. Please do subscribe to the channel if you want to see more climbing videos with Hannah. Please like, please comment, tell us what you think. And we look forward to seeing you in the next one.