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Review > Nicros > Lotta Balls

At first glance you'll do exactly what I did, look again! Why? Because of this what came through the post:

The Lotta Balls from Nicros are a strange dual textured bunch of holds that routesetters smile that evil smile they sometimes get, and will make climbers wonder what the hell they're holding onto and what kind of sick genius put these onto a wall, let alone the wall they're climbing on.

From the base up these holds are a little strange to get to grips with, their geometric bases are slick and then the only place for someone to grab is the balls that are on the various angles that compromise these holds; I'll admit that it took us a few go's on some of the routes we set to get them to a place where we could complete the moves we'd set, but that is part and parcel of being a routesetter! Deceiving is a good was to describe these holds as well, many a time we've been talking about how to hold the grip in it's specific orientation and we've been totally (not just a little) TOTALLY wrong; Nick O has done an amazing job, these shapes do have a particular feel to them that says "balance is going to be key"

We had these at the wall when we grabbed a half set and Noodles used them in a route with some other black holds we had, he set the holds we had; the largest one and the two top holds in the above picture; as the crux move of a route that ran at 5.10+ The comments that came back from some of the staff was that it was the best route that he'd set at the gym for a while and they especially liked the tricky back step move off of one of the holds to the largest that spanned one of the stepped overhangs at the gym. It was a tricky route that really tested peoples grip strength and balance all the way up, despite the fact that he ran up it the first time in his 5.10 Guides it still proved to be tricky for a lot of the climbers, many making it to the top in one pumpy session and others getting stumped at the pinch move on the large hold (It was a real balance and trust move :P Noodles)

Even after a couple of months on our wall, and a month away at the gym we still had more to do with these holds, when they're set on a corner they make some wicked wicked pinches / open hand grips that test your trust in what you can hold, in most cases you can hold them but others you just find yourself on the floor. Noodles actually broke his foot last week when we were wrapping up our filming for the video below, you'll see a cut right at the end of the video when he fails on a route that we're still trying and kicks the wall so hard he flew backwards and into Eve who had just walked through the door into the room... all in a flurry of swearing as he missed the blank part of the wall and kicked a pointed foot hold :( He takes his climbing seriously!

So people will have a hard time reading the holds, that's not a bad thing to have in your arsenal if you're setter, or if you're playing on your home wall. They're not the easiest, they're not the hardest but they are fun to play with.





We'd like to know how many iterations they went through to get to where these holds are today. You can tell a lot of thought went into the placement of the balls, which have enough texture for you to holds and pull, but you're going to be surprised by how delicate you have to be with them when you're on them :P

These holds get three ratings, incut, sloper and flat, because it really depends upon where and how you're set these holds on your wall; we've been from crimps to wide pinches to around the edge pinches with these holds with little or no effort, nearly all of the holds can be matched, but you will have to work for it as these holds are hard. We'd suggest them for larger home walls as they are hard, but they are versatile.... and good for up to a 45 degree wall, it'd be nice if the were some more of these with different sized balls so they really cater for beginner climbers a little more... not that beginners can't climb on them, they can and they're going to have a lesson in how to hold a strange shape and then if they're using them for feet afterwards a lesson in footwork and that's something that these holds are good for as well. If you set the hold so it's just right for our hands, chances are the feet aren't going to be optimum so you can catch people out pretty easily. If you're good with your feet the amount of options available are huge, but if you're of a mind set to dump your foot onto the biggest / closest thing you could and probably will be surprised by what's going to happen, us we'd not be surprised as we got caught out too :)
It's surprising how many options there are to hold on these holds, we're constantly finding new ways to put them that makes for some either easy to just plain hard moves, the choice is yours, but if you get them you've got a Lotta Balls, that's for sure!


Versatility: Rotate for a new grip position, if you can hold them
Screw Holes: No


EVE
I like these Nicros holds, they are quite original! I certainly never seen anything like them. They're fairly big and usually big means comfortable but in this case don't be fooled: The Lotta Balls are not a beginner's friend. They are mostly impossible to hold on to, with a slick texture and very little angles, except for the 'Lotta Balls' plastered all over. Little beads set up in rows or aggregates that are truly the only thing worth squeezing on these holds. These holds are very fun to play on, don't get me wrong, but they are challenging holds and if you are climbing on a finger injury, I wouldn't advise climbing on these. The first route the boys set, I went on and killed it, one shot (yes, I am gloating!), and even after only 30 seconds of climbing, I felt the strain in my fingers for a few hours. My take on it? The Lotta Balls are 'lotta fun' but potentially 'lotta pain'! (and yes, I think I'm funny ;) lol!)

SEB
Promiscuity comes with a share of risk and the wall at climbing hold review lives precariously as it is making out with a lot of people and toys. I was stunned as I entered the room of the wall last week.

Me - WTF noodles!!

Noods - What?

Me - The disease on the wall for f@$# sake. Where does that comes from?

Noods - Red rock Nevada… well it originally comes from there but then spread to Minnesota

Me - Do these gazillion zits have a name? By the way; I’m not popping any of these.

Noodles - Lotta balls

Me - I know…

Noodles - No, it’s the name… and don’t lick them.

Me - hummm…

I gotta say that I did not play that much with these holds. Not that they were disgusting (but the color is weird) or anything like it but it just happened that way. Anyways once you stop starring at them (which is hard) and start feeling them in more intimate way; you quickly realize that they are not amateur stuff. In the sense that they are pinches/crimps but man these are tiny finger tip deep holds. Don’t get me wrong, they are fun… actually quite fun… even versatile in a weird way but HARD. Nicros is not lying when they describe it: “when you need a little extra something”.

As for the texture well there is not enough skin that gets in touch with the balls to really make it a matter of discussion :)

The route that I tried was not easy but taking advantage of these shapes. Their versatility became obvious as almost nobody did the route the same way and yet everybody had fun on it. Keep in mind that this is rare… not the fun part… the variety. We usually all end up doing it in a similar way except for the foot placement (there are giants and midgets in the crew).

Bottom line: Hardcore people should buy some. As for me, I would not discard them but they are a bit intense and expensive for my level of climbing / budget. That being said every gym should have some. They are really interesting so make sure that you do look and TOUCH them in order to make your own opinion.

All that said I must reiterate that they do look like a rock disease.

Review > Nicros > Burly Bits / Diff Tex Footchips

We've have had the pleasure of reviewing some sweet holds in the past month, some big jugs, some not so big jugs and slappy sloppers, but now we're going back to my personal favorite the crimps :P Enter the Burly Bits from Nicros.If we want to get technical, the Burly Bits aren't all crimps. The set was designed by Kimberly down at Nicros to simulate the feel of granite. Although all these holds are small (three fingers at most) they aren't all crimps. The set includes pinches and (for lack of a better term) slopes. Enter stage right the Diff Tex foot chips from Nicros, the perfect compliment to the Burly's:So we took the two sets of holds and put up a route at our local gym, Allez Up. If ever you get a set of the foot chips in your possession you`ll realize that its going to take a laser sight on your shoes to pinpoint the good part of the hold, we had a lot of people with sloppy footwork get some air time! The holds are ideal for mad balance moves and are great for face climbs and that is where I ended up setting my route, it started below a fairly large bulge, went up and over the top and then straight up a vertical wall to it's conculsion, if your footwork was bad then you were going to have a hell of a time getting to the top, even though the route was only graded 5.9+

You would think that the Diff Tex foot chips are dual tex but they're not they have a textured area and an non textured area (Editors note: isn't that dual tex?), which is different from a Dual Tex hold, confused? So where we... here's what the Nicros site says this about them:
"1 Tick footchips offer a little more texture and varies the location of the texture when compared to the No Tick footchips. We offer three different sets of the same shapes that sport both a "textured" area as well as an "untextured" area with the texture located in different areas of the hold. These holds force you to really look at your foot placements. Isn't that what improved footwork is all about? Technical Course Setters rave about these footchips!"
Ah see, these are different from normal footchips! Nicros are being sneaky!! So these aren't your normal Dual Tex foot chips these are really really deciving... more than you think, they should pretty well be in most setters bags we think, especially as there four different variations of the same shapes!! Yup FOUR, one set textured, one set with practically no texture, and then two sets with small areas (like we have) but in different places, so you can leave up the same handholds and just switch the feet!! Would we be so mean to do that?? HELL YEAH, i'd bring a chair and a cup of coffee and watch people just get spat off of the wall :)

The Burly Bits on the other hand are dual tex! They're all made with the textured part on either side, and can be used as pinches, while the center part is smooth. It doesn't make much difference when you're using them as hand holds but there will be no smears when it comes to your feet. After bringing them back from the gym you could see the rubber on the textured part of the hold only. The crimps are bigger than you would expect due to some of the large incuts but they can still bite the fingers a little, not in a "ow ow ow" way, but in a positive way that lets you know you're on the hold properly! The sloping shapes from the set would be best on a slab. Once again balance is needed to navigate these holds.

And onto our wall :) We had them on the wall before they went to the gym, and we were having a hard time with them on the 30 degree overhang, they're do-able, but you really need to hold on! They make for some great powerful climbing, and again when you pair them with the footchips, you're going to be screaming to hold on and to get your feet on the good part of the hold. It's well documented that Noodles doesn't like crimps, he likes his fingers and would rather leave the superburly (HA!) climbing for outside or when he's competeing, but that being said even he thought that they were some pretty interesting shapes, with a good mix of shapes.











When we brought the holds to the gym they where set on a vertical wall. Most people could get through the climb and there where no complaints about the size but when you put them on any kind of overhang, look out!!! The crimps are bearable and the little "slopers" are only good for your feet. Some people did come back with the comment that the hold shapes felt a little too similar from hold to hold, it's a interesting point and one that we looked at once we brought the holds home, there is a degree of similarity between some of the holds but as they're all crimps with a small variation in size we can see why people think this! (It's also because we did have some duplicate holds up there aswell :P) Overall it was fun watching people try to grab the footchips rather than some of the holds to get up the route... wrong move!!

If you need to set some technical balancy moves on a slab or vertical wall these are something you should look at, if you want crimps for anything past 30 degrees overhung we suggest you give them a miss.... hopefully Kim-Burly will shape some more of the same style holds that are better suited to steeply overhung walls :)

The footchips can be used anywhere, they're going to tax peoples footwork to the absolute limit, from vertical to steeply overhung terrain we're having a hoot and will probably pick up the other sets pretty soon... they're that good!!



EVE
Ok, so I don't want to sound like a hater but... What happened there? First of all, these holds are ugly! It's like they tried to go all 80s about it (which I would luuuuuuuv) but then chickened out of it last minute and ended up with lightly colored wannabe tie-dyed swirls on a easily dirtied boring white background! The hand holds are shaped alright, crimps being crimps they're not comfortable per say but fairly easy to stick to. Gives a nice challenge, for me! The foot holds on the other hand are a bloody nightmare (great, the Brit rubbed off!) Either I'd slip right off or, when I'd find something more usable, I'd have to hang there, looking like I've got a twitch, trying to land EXACTLY at the millimeter where your toe fits nicely. Personally, I like a little more flexibility. It should be noted that the swirly Burlys were much more appreciated (by me mind you) on the boulder than on the wall. I think it's because having the right hand sequence is crucial to success with these holds (since your feet seem to hang there for show more then for support) and if you screw up on the wall, it quickly becomes a long power route. No good for my girly arms! Conclusion....you want a challenge? There's a challenge! I hope you don't use much leg flexibility and balance work when you climb though! (Editors note: Chris' route at the gym was all flexibilty and foot work, and it was wicked)
DAN
I love 'em! As far as small holds go, these are definitely among my favorites. There is a really good variety of angles in the set, both positive and negative, and also a good variety in the depth of the holds. It keeps climbing interesting, while keeping you from getting too comfortable up on the wall, which is a good thing. The texture is by far my favorite thing about them though. The best word I can think of to describe it is "chunky". Don't ask why, you won't understand until you've held the hold yourself. It's not like anything I've ever really seen in the gym before. Probably the closest plastic has ever felt to real rock to me. Kudos to the designers on this one! The foot holds are nice, but in my opinion nothing to get too excited about. Definitely a good addition to any climbing wall and definitely a challenge. Not too many flat edges here! I would say a really good set to practice keeping your feet on the wall while its trying to spit you off.

• Great for setting
• Big pinches, small pinches, crimps... mini slopes, this set has them all
• Footchips are super technical, you will end up with great footwork!!
  

CONS

• Could pop a tendon on an overhang, crimpings baaaad!
  
• Some of the shapes do feel a little similar to one another
  

PRICE
Burly Bits are $27.97 (Normally $39.95 THEY'RE ON SALE!) for 10 holds
Diff Tex Footchips are $37.95 for 10 holds, there are four different sets for your setting pleasure!

Review > Nicros > Skin Saver Crimps

When we mentioned to Greg at Nicros that we were building a 45 degree wall he mentioned that he had something that we'd like! They have a set of crimps that as they say on their site:
"Wanna climb on the 60 without feeling like you're climbing on the 60? Skin Saver Crimps are available in all shapes and sizes. Every hold is strategically Dif-Texed, revealing just enough texture to help preserve your pads." That piqued our interest, and once they arrived they were one of the first sets of holds to be bolted up and hauled on...
What's interesting about these holds is the nature of the dif-texture on the holds, some are left or right hand bias and when you grab them your fingers fall into the optimal spot with the textured area! We set some routes all over the wall, from the 15 to 45 degrees to the ceiling and what you're going to notice is that these holds are exactly as the Nicros site describes, nice big dual textured crimps, as usual we had the video camera on hand to record some of the routes (We're using a new video package, so the quality is better (you can watch in high quality) but the editing is a little bit below our normal standard!))

The holds preferred realm is going to be steep walls, so our holds now reside on the new 45 degree; all of the holds are nice and positive without turning themselves into jugs, the steeper you go the harder they get, but they never get to the point where you say "they're not going on to that", they always remain and feel very doable. We think that the holds are a nice in between set for people that have been climbing for a while that want to haul on steep walls, for beginners given the right hand / left hand bias these will teach (if set right) route finding and problem solving, for the strong climbers out there; there is enough hold/grip to slow you down should you misread the problem or route. There is a lot of fun to be had, the amount is up to whomever sets the route

We had these on the wall before the new 45 went up, all over the place; we even put them on our Jug-or-Not that we have on the roof... and on the roof by themselves. For holds that are designed for steep to super steep terrain these get the job done and get it done very very well, they don't rip your skin to shreds when you're hauling away, there is one minor gripe with these holds is that we'd have preferred the radii of the lips on the holds to be a little larger, they're not sharp like most crimps these are rounded, but when you dyno to some of them they do bite a little!!! But these are crimps (pretty big one's at that) so it's nothing major

When you put them on a roof they do feel marginal... they weren't designed for roofs so don't expect an easy time if you set with them there. That being said, if you're feeling strong and your padding is good then they are more than climbable when your back is pointing at the floor

Review > Nicros > Infinity Board

NOTE:

This is a preview of a product that isn't in full production at the time of this review going live. What we're looking at is a prototype..

It was with great anticipation that I spoke to some of the folks over at Nicros months back, my emails were answered by Nic who gave me a very early sneak peak at something that had been in the works for three years... how could my interest not be kicked into overdrive at something that looked like this:It's called the Infinity Board, and it's Nicros new modular training board that's due to be released this October. What we have is a prototype of the final version, so please take that into account when reading.

The board arrives at work so I carry it home and wait Chris to come over so we can mount the board, I check the paper work that came in both boxes for the mounting instructions, guess what? There was none, but as I've mounted hang boards before I set to work, normally I'd mount the board in the normal fashion of putting some plywood up, drilling holds, adding t-nuts and mounting the board off of our normal climbing structure. This time I went a different route, I measured the distance between the bolts on the Infinity and my wall, found that they were different and then just drilled a 2x6 to use as a mounting bracket. Anyone who actually orders this board will receive a template for mounting the board, the paperwork is currently being made up by Nicros.

We grab the holds off of the living room floor (they'd arrived in a parcel a few weeks before as I'd ordered some holds) and get the cat hair off of them, and then check what we should have, the holds we have are the easy set... which consists of: Two easy slopers, two jugs, two pinches and a rail. We have two rails and no jugs, but we labor on none the less, we've come this far so we bolt up the holds as per the image off of the blog for the board (here), jugs on the top... well a rail for us, the slopers on either side and the pinches underneath... the slopers are what I'm going to spend the most time hanging from (they're the nicest shapes to train on) so I grab these, and then fall onto my ass. The slopers are dual texture, which is overkill really for what they're being used for, and the texture is pretty smooth so they're hard to hold onto... and these are the easy holds! The way Nicros change the holds from easy to hard to just to make the radii of the hold smaller. I'm not finding them easy to hold onto, but maybe I'm a huge wuss or not as strong as think I am. With this in mind I chat to Kimberly over at Nicros and check on the holds and who shaped them, and it was Eric Horst that shaped the pockets and some other people that shaped the other holds, so I do some more checking and ask why they're dual texture because for the life of me I couldn't figure out why. The reply was so simple I kicked my self in the ass, the top part of the hold is textured for you to hang on, the bottom is slick so then you can't cheat the movement by using your thumb as a pinch. So Nicros are being very very clever with the design. I head back to the wall and with
some perseverance I get the holds set so I can hang them easily and start doing some dead hangs and some assisted pull ups. I really think that the texture on the slopes needs to be a little more aggressive than it is, because if you're running sets of hangs or pull ups you're going to find yourself sliding off backwards after a while, it's nothing serious, but I do find myself chalking to get onto these and really I'd prefer to train without chalk... so then when I use chalk it'll feel like I'm cheating :P

We move onto the rail, and find that it's nice and deep, Chris is having no problem hanging about and doing pull ups on it, same for me... but I find that the edge digs into the last pad (closest to my palm) and raises them a little. I'd have preferred the rail to have a rounder radii than it has as it'd be much more friendly on the skin. Again the rail is dual texture, the top has texture and the bottom and front side are dual texture so they're (again) trying to stop you from cheating. What would make the rail even better is if it tapered towards the center so you can train a greater variety of grip positions i.e: single pad, dual pad etc. The resoning behind this is this; (Again we asked) The rail is diff tex not necessarily for cheating but some people complain their finger pads hurt and like training on no tex while other people insist they need grip to be able to stick on. So, we drew a line down the middle and appeased both sets of people. We can see this being a problem, but think it should still be tapered and the radii lessened as it'd add more variety too this hold.

We switch the slopes for the pockets and go for another round of pull ups and hangs, we're training three's here: we're pairing first finger and your middle finger together and hang on it and hold. Then we're pairing our middle finger and ring finger together and hold.We'll get round to using our pinkys and ring fingers when we get stronger. Doing this we found that there is a slight edge that digs our skin a little

The final set of holds for the board are the pinches, and they're again not as big or as easy as we expected them to be, an easy pinch should have nice soft curves and a nice deep area to grab. We think that these are the closet to an easy hold out of the set, they're big enough to do pull ups on but not so big that you can hang off of them for minutes at a time. Right now we're using them instead of the rails as edges, because they have a slightly nicer edge to them than the rails.

SUGGESTED USES
No symbol needed here, the board is obviously made as a modular training board. You can mount it anywhere you wish, above a door is a prime place to mount this beast! As a training tool for training specifics, pinches, slopes, jugs and edges, it is good, but you're going to have to move the holds around if you want to get variety out of it. Moving holds mid workout is a pain, and as most people have hang boards because they need to train and don't have much time we think that most people will go with a simple set up and will rarely change it from workout to workout.

OVERALL BUILD (BOARD)
The board is fiberglass that's been molded and then drilled and the t nuts are finally glued onto the back, the boards overall build for us is so so, when you look at the quality of the Jug-or-Not that we have and have reviewed we think it's substandard compared to what we've seen Nicros make, the nuts aren't all totally covered with glue and this could compromise their placements, but remember this is a pre-production model.

But as a fiberglass shape it's well formed and we've not seen anything like it, the structure is sturdy and it's been built to last, but there are problems that do need to be addressed with something of this kind, there was one problem from when Noodles was carrying it home from work, the fiberglass edges of the board were not sealed so carrying the board gave Noodles fiberglass in his arms. These should really have some sealer of some kind painted over them

OVERALL BUILD (HOLDS)
Nicros have made holds for a good long time, so you're going to get some quality shapes from bomber quality polyester resin. Like we mentioned before, we didn't get the jugs for the easy set, so we can't comment upon them, but we can talk about the rail, pockets, slopers and the pinches. Again it's easier to list the problems that we see with the holds in relation to the board:

We think that as we have the easy set of holds, these need to be looked at a little more:

• Pockets: Are smaller than expected, and you can only get three fingers into them. For a beginner pocket we were expecting something that'd allow four fingers, they have a slight edge upon them that catches you when they're placed on certain angles
• Rails: These can only be placed on one of the surfaces of the board, and should have the edge of them rounded off as they catch your finger pads. They are nice and deep, but they should taper so you can train for different edge depths, right now they're a constant depth all the way along
• Pinches: They're not as easy as you think, we're using them as edges as they're slightly nicer on the fingers than the rails. You'd expect them to be more beginner friendly than they are.
• Slopers: The texture needs to be beefed up, and they have a super wide grip so beginners are going to have a hell of a time hanging them. One of our slopers is hollow backed and the other is solid, which was a little strange.
  

Overall for three years R&D more time and effort could have been put into the shapes that we have.

WHAT IT'S MADE FROM
The board is fiberglass and the holds are polyester resin, what you're getting whether you just order the board or just the holds is some seriously heavy shapes.

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
I've looked forward to the board hitting my house since I saw it, and I'm glad that we got to see it before most people, it's a pre-production model, so there are going to be flaws, so I guess this review is more of an R&D exercise for us and Nicros than anything else, but it is a good look at how Nicros are pushing forward with design of things that have become commonplace in most climbers homes.

Along with all of the negatives and improvements that we've suggested some people will reap huge benefits from this board and holds, but I'm going to point out a number of things that we've not had in the review above and what most people might not realize: The board is: $159.95, and the holds are $119.95 on top of the price of the board, someone must be having a laugh pure and simple. As a concept I applaud Nicros on their forward thinking, but I'm not sure that many people will buy something that's as multi use like this, they want to just get on and train without moving holds around.

Now that being said adding a Croc Bloc from Nicros to the board will make it better for all around training, this is something that I shall be doing in the next few weeks, as it will add more variety to the board.

Last time I checked most hang boards prices were sub $100, hell Nicros own hangboard is $89.95, so $160 for the base is steep, adding more for the holds is just insane. My advice is this: a standard hang board has more variety without having to move holds around, sure if you want to train real serious specifics then the Infinity board is more able to accommodate you (but honestly I cannot see any thing that the Infinity board does that a hang board doesn't do three times over), buying a standard hang board is cheaper... by $180, if the first board doesn't have what you want, buy a second one, and you still have $80 to spend on a night out. Harsh but fair. I love Nicros holds, they have some of the best shapes on the market, I love their EHT (Extreme Hold Technology) shapes, but this time they fell short of the mark for me, it's a finite board, not infinite.

CHRIS
I was just as excited as Noodles for this hang board to show up. I'm the kinda climber who doesn't do a much training on hang boards and so I wanted to get some good training done on this board. The base of the board is a genius idea but three years to develop...come on. I wanted to give Nicros the benifit of the doubt on this one (cause I really like the concept) but when I checked out the price it changed my mind in an instant. At first I thought that the $159.95 price on the infinite board blog included the one set of holds but after taking a close look at the page I realized that the holds come seperate with the steep price of $119.95. So out of curiosity I checked out some other companies that supply system training holds, now there is a lot to offer on the market and some of the shapes have more diversity than the holds that we received. Did I mention that they were cheaper?

Other than the price, I found that the shapes aren't half bad. The rail didn't dig into my fingers and the pinches are a good width to get your hand around but they work better as ledges. The pockets could be a little bigger if the holds are meant for chin ups or for strengthening your lock off but if they are designed with hanging exercises in mind the pocket should be smaller with different varieties incorporating three, two or one finger on the same hold (like those that you see on the bottom portion of most hang boards). I'd rather see these pockets on a route than a training board. Another point that I disagree on with Noodles are the slopes. If you've been keeping up with our reviews the past few month you'd know that we've both had problems with the tendons in our fingers. Now the perfect half sphere shape of the hold makes your hand sit flush around the hold, with your weight pretty much evenly distributed along the length of your fingers. It was actually a relief to be hanging off of the slopes!

All in all this could be a valuable training tool if you want to train specifics and if Nicros could find a way to lower the cost. You'd have to invest into other system holds (or matching pairs of holds) so it will match your specific training and level of climbing. In my opinion, if you're looking at getting the most for your money I would go with the standard hang board or better yet bolt a bunch of system holds to a piece of plywood and stick it above you door.

PROS

• Modular hangboard, use it as you wish
  
• Three different difficulty's of holds, so pick your level and train what you need
• Good concept
  

CONS

• The price is a big factor, the board and sets of holds are expensive
  
• Not enough variety, you can train slopes, pinches, jugs and rails on all the sets of holds, but you only get one type of each per set

PRICE
The Infinity Board is: $159.95 (board only)
A set of holds are: $119.95, there are three sets easy, medium and hard
The board and holds will be available in October

Review > Nicros > Combat

Ah it's been a while, last time we looked at anything from Nicros it was this, their Jug-Or-Not, which is a monster and a staple of our wall. The Combat have been out for a while and we've had our eyes on them as they're dual texture pinches (like the E-Grips 2-Tex Pure Crimps) but bigger and we figured they'd be a good addition to the wall.
The Combats for one bring up certain images of fighting, and this is compounded more by the fact that these holds have little kung-fu images embossed on them... no really! Look at the above image and you can see the little guys on the left of the picture. Although we knew that the little fighters were on the holds they were not all that apparent until you actually climb on the holds and get some chalk onto them, once you've touched the holds the raised image is easier to see :)

I set a route that has some similar moves to what was set way back when on the E-Grips 2-Tex Pure Crimps (Yes they are crimps but I was using them as pinches more than crimps!) you can see that video here, it was an exercise to see how these holds matched up with similar moves and with these holds... and after playing for a few hours it can be simply put that these holds are nice positive pinches that depending upon the way you rotate them can be hauled on my pretty much anyone. Of course there are a few holds in the set that are harder than others but even these are positive, they're just a little thinner than the rest. Once we'd got a feel for the holds we did something that no normal person would try with these holds.... we stuck a few on the roof, making sure ay the same time that we had some nice feet so we could see how they felt when you have to grab them overhead. The video below tells the story better than words :P

The holds are actually on the Nicros site as shallow pinches, but we think that they're not actually that shallow, they're shaped by Nic Oklobzija who i've spoken to a little bit over the last few months and he's been shaping a bunch of stuff of late, including the Infinity Training board (which took three years of R&D) which should hit my doorstep this week sometime!

If you read the Nicros Training page, which is written by the Eric Horst, who's written a bunch of books on climbing, you can see the full list of holds that he recommends (here) for indoor training that Nicros make. I found the page after we'd written our suggestions on angle and it's nice to see that we're spot on for what we recommend using the holds on!!

I prefer pinching to say crimping so I like these holds a lot and had a bunch of fun making Chris make noises as we gripped the holds for the video. We've had a bunch of pinches that we've reviewed over time and these are some of the nicest that we've had our hands on. They're good enough for steep walls and some serious training or for setting easy routes for beginners that teaches them body movement. Right now the holds are at Allez Up on a 5.10 that I set last weekend, I'm using them half of the set in their intended format on the first part of the route so the only feet that the climber has is the slick dual texture part, and then on the second part of the route they're set as slopes and crimps. From what I've seen and heard so far people really like the holds, there's been no complaints.

The only thing I can fault Nicros on is the fact that their packing wasn't that good, some of the other holds in the box had moved around in transport and had chipped. It wasn't a case of Fed Ex throwing the parcel around, the box that arrived at my door didn't have a scuff mark or ding on it, it was just a case of loose holds moving and bumping into each other. I spoke to Nicros about the problem and they're sending replacements out, their customer service once again has been faultless!

• Some of the best pinches on the market for training
• They're multi use holds, if you use the holds in a horizontal position they are nice one pad slopes or incuts.
• Skin and tendon friendly design
  

CONS

• (Minor point) Can't see the little fighting guys on the holds, they could be raised a little more
  
• All the holds have a similar design, you know what to expect from one hold to another
• Nicros packing wasn't all that great the first time around
  

PRICE
The Combats are $56.95, and considering you're getting 10 training friendly pinches the price is pretty good.

**Thanks to Brian O'Connor for sorting us out with the holds, he's leaving Nicros on Sept 5th and we wish him all the best in his future endevours, lucky bugger will be living right next to Smith Rock**

Review > Nicros > Jug-Or-Not?

Jug-or-Not? that is the question. Hold-able? Climb-able? Hang-able? There's lots of "ables" in this review, why? Because if your wall is feeling a little flat, this monster will give you hours of fun and will make you work harder than you expected!

We've had this hold for around a month, and how happy was I that I ordered it? Pretty damn!
I had the hold shipped to work, so the receptionist bared the brunt of my "has a package arrived yet?" questions.. oh and what a happy day when it did, then and only then did I realize that it's really quite large... how large??
This large:Big enough to fit on the largest head! It's HUGE, which lets face it is pretty damn cool.

Now grab your wrench and start tightening, and when I say wrench I mean socket wrench, this hold has some serious hardware with it... once on the wall add some of the holds that come with it and start pulling. We didn't actually add the holds at first because we wanted to see just how slopey this hold is. Well we have a lot of slopes over here at Casa Del Noodles but we weren't expecting this......

...sloper heaven, and this is on a vertical wall, in fact which ever way you do turn it, it's hard to hold. But hey least I managed to get higher than Chris. Once you get over pulling without the holds that come with the main base you can have hours more fun just bolting them on and going nuts (It's what we did most of the night)

Heel hooks, knee bars, hell we even put some other holds onto it and chucked it onto the ceiling

All we want now is the No Evil triple set (see the Nicros website for that one) once we get those we're not leave the house for a month :)

RATING
NOODLES SAYS:
More more give me more, this hold is just so damn versatile it's not funny. It's hard to hold onto when its on the vertical, and its REALLY hard to hold onto when its on an overhang. Where this hold comes into its own is as a mini (?) feature that you can use to bolt other holds to. What is a nice surprise was the small holds that came with the main event. The quality and texture of these holds is pretty damn good (I think we'd set a route with them before we put up the big hold)

I was amazed by Nicros - Extreme Hold Technology (EHT), if this is the future of large volumes (light strong and affordable) then I'm expecting to see more and more of them at the commercial gyms and gracing peoples home walls.

Nicros are also on the ball when it comes to shipping orders and when you call or email them, they'll get back to you pretty damn quickly, even if its to ask if your hold has been shipped yet. I think I dropped them a mail one morning and someone called me back within 30 mins, how crazy is that???
CHRIS' FINAL WORD
The question for me is would I spend $100 on a single hold? Hell yeah, after seeing this at Casa Del Noodles I'm going to order the Apex (on the left) from the looks of it we can get some mantles in!

Jug-or-Not?, well its not a jug till you bolt some holds onto it, but its probably one of the most thought provoking holds that I've climbed upon lately. The texture on the main body is just enough to hold onto, so the grooves and features come into play. It's a great hold and if your loved one really loves you then they'll buy you a big Christmas stocking and they'll buy you a Jug-or-Not? :P