January 29, 2009

Rubber McCheatey Gloves


For a short primer on giving me shit, take a look at these comments. Thanks for sticking up for me Dom, but I wish your proof reading skills matched your analytic ones. But what could you hope to do against old friends being a pain in the ass, as always. Without those douche bags, I'd have such an inflated ego. How horrible that would be, me having an inflated ego, how horrible, how horrid.

So I believe some words are in order. I'll begin, like Lewis Carroll, at the beginning. Randy Leavitt FA'd Dihedron in the 90's using rubber palm gloves and fixed pins. I've always loved the idea of rubber gloves, and after I'd tried the route a few times, I had to have it. My first attempt was a bit of a failure: I bought a pair of hand jammies and turned them around so the rubber was on my palm. Take a look, stylish no?


The real problem is that hand jammies are made to pull out of the crack. When you palm the force goes on the fingers, not the wrist. The elastic around the fingers simply stretches away, or in more practical terms, you fall. That's not good when your pro consists of RPs, so something had to change.

Back to the store, but this time I was looking for something a little more mundane. A pair of leather fingerless weight training gloves. Kevin at Five Ten added green rubber to the palm, you know, green rubber, the stuff on the toe of the Jet 7. I little snip snip to the rest of the fingers, and this is what I ended up with.


How nice these feel! They save the palm while making it stick better. What more could a brother want?

That's it for the background, now time for the defense. These are the reasons to use gloves on this climb, in descending order of importance. I'll number them for ease of commenting:
#1 - Style! Black leather glove on the left hand only. I could even add rhinestones. 'Nuff said.
#2 - Save those palms! J-Tree is so rough on the skin, and this climb can rip holes in the unprotected palm unless you wear protection. And I always do.
#3 - The FA! Gloves were worn on the first ascent, so there is a precedent. Speaking of precedent...
#4 - Kneepads are permissible! People wear kneepads for two reasons, to save the skin and to make kneebars more secure. I'm wearing palm gloves for the same reason.
There you have it. What says the masses? You've seen what they can do, you've seen how stylish they are, they were used on the FA, and they are entirely analogous to using sticky rubber in other places (oh my!). Bring on the controversy.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think using gloves is up to the climber.

I think it is a valid point that it would be better style to ditch the glove.

On the FA of another hard dihedral, Book of Hate 13d, Randy Levitt used gloves.

Subsequent ascents by Beth and Tommy did not use glove(s).

After you get your gloved ascent take it to the next level and do it glove free.

BTW who did the 2nd ascent of Dihedron?

Alan Moore said...

pat turner got the second ascent.

http://www.wildcountry.co.uk/Community/Sponsees/PatTurner/

J V said...

The landing looks flat. Boulder it. No bullshit RP's and no bullshit gloves.

Justin said...

If you use the gloves they better have rhinestones! I want updated pictures with rhinestones too. In addition, I will only give you full credit for a valid ascent if you wear cut off jeans shorts for the ascent. I'm talking no more than two inches of denim extending from the crotch. There should be concern on the part of your belayer that your ball might flop out, otherwise its not valid.

Justin said...

the word "ball" is not a typo. Alan only has one, its kind of a sad story so I'll leave it up to him to disclose.

J V said...

Actually, I heard he lost the second one in another "incident"

Alan Moore said...

i have two balls.

sock hands said...

i had seen this post about the stealth paint a while back and i'm curious if you'd be willing to give some impressions of its stick and durability. i'm keen on applying it to the leather sides of the heel cup on a pair of mantra s, as well as over the big toe. did it hold up well to smearing? it seems that it did provide some decent stick, but i'm worried that it will just grind off on the crystaline colorado choss. thanks