Yes, gear heads it’s that time of year again. Time to see what’s hot and what’s not in the outdoor gear world. I’m talking of course about North America’s geargasmic gathering of industry makers and shakers, the Summer Outdoor Retailers Show.

Held every year in the Salt Palace in beautiful downtown Salt Lake City, the Show attracts 3000 venders hawking every conceivable and imaginable piece of gear you could ever want. Which means that if just being out in the great outdoors is not enough to make you content — but if being outside with some bling new gear might make you happy — then this is the place to be.

However, all that outdoor paraphernalia got me thinking. I’ve always wondered why the indoor climbing industry somehow got lumped in with the outdoor retailers. It turns out some other people thought it was weird too, and it seems this year most of the indoor climbing industry decided to stay home (or where perhaps shamed or shunned away).

What I mean is, I went to Salt Lake as a representative of the thousands of climbing gyms that could not spare the outrageous costs associated with traveling to and getting into the OR Show. I hoped to find great gear that gyms would be able to buy and use to make their facilities that much better.

But what I found instead was a smattering of only the biggest players in the indoor game; only those that can afford the $$$$ price tag to even get a booth, get to the Show and make it worth it.

Perhaps I was naive to go; it is the INDOOR industry after all. What was I thinking? Well it wasn’t a complete loss. Here is what I found as I entered the cavern of Salt Palace.

eGrips

I posted this original article late at night and I forgot one very important company. EGrips was at the Show to showcase their new line of font shapes. The grips look great and setters at the Show are saying that they are some of the best fonts to come out since the Boss.

Pro-setters, Chris Daneilson and Jamie Emerson were also there to get the word out about eGrips new setters team. What does the the team do? They set mega classics at the drop of a dime and all with dope new shapes of eGrips.

They also have cool new posters. Wanna get your own cartoon doppelganger? Tough luck, eGrip only takes the best pro-setters in America. But you can get a poster of todays best setters to hang above your bed.

However, it was disappointing that every year at OR eGrips get overshadowed by their parent company, Trango. Sure Trango is a great organization with useful gear. But I’d like to see eGrips get the attention they deserve at the OR Show.
Metolius

That stalwart of gear makers, Metolius, was there to show off its newest (and some oldest) gear for the die-hard outdoor climber. Oh and they have new climbing holds!

Sure they’ve been pouring holds longer than just about any company, and indeed at one point they were one of the major players in the grip business. With Jim Karn, legendary shaper and climber, Metolius has produced some of the most iconic shapes of the early 1990’s. But it had seemed that the new millennium had passed them by… until now.

Karn comes at us again with 5 sets that are new to Metolius but may not be the most original. Karn only brought three sets with him to OR, the Pinches, cobblestone mini jugs, and something called “Drips”. The pinches look like e-grip knock-offs but are still good shapes; the cobblestone mini jugs are also nice and would be great in any gym environment and the drips are, well, just weird.

All in all if you only buy Metolius holds then you’ve got some pretty good shapes coming. If on the other hand you want original and creative hold design Metolius will disappoint.

So Ill – Cryptochild

On the other side of the creative spectrum is the crazy and zany Chancellor brothers of So Ill holds. When I walked into the So Ill booth the first thing I saw was a hold seeing me! The enormous “Eye Bugger”, shaped by Jason Kehl, looks as if he stole it from a three eyed alien.

This thing is cool, that is if you can lift it off the ground and put on your wall without stripping a t-nut. Estimated at 25 lbs, according to Dave Chancellor it is “a prototype and may change or it may not, we don’t really know.” That means if you want the original Eye then call up the brothers and order one now.

Also hanging out at So Ill was the new line of Cryptochild holds. Yes Jason Kehl is the man behind Cryptochild, and yes he has shaped for So Ill, and yes I know it’s kinda confusing.

So it works like this: Kehl will still shape for So Ill, ETCH and a few others. But after all the years as the go-to-guy for creative shapes he was tired. Tired of doing all this shaping for someone else and decided he wanted to get some for his own. Not in a greedy way, just in a marketing kind of way. Either way he’s got some pretty good shapes coming out under the new Cryptochild brand.

Crypto has 15 new holds coming out from big phallic stalactites to organic hematite-ish orb blobs. He also told me that over the next year he will be developing Crpto to include some general comp and training shapes.

HRT

This Bulgaria based child company of WallTopia has perhaps the most original method of making holds in the business. Though they won’t come out for another year (so they say), Travis Mashen, the lead American on the team, brought a few samples to show off.

Super thin urethane with an internal spring around the core bolt hole, these holds are without a doubt the lightest holds on the market. Now if only their shapes can catch up to their technology.

Madrock

No Madrock is not selling holds, and they don’t have anything that new as far as gear. But they do have a new rubber coming out that is supposedly way stickier than any of the leading (Five Ten, La Sportiva) shoe makers. And to prove it they sent me through a very high-tech and fancy testing process that I guess proves what they say.

One item I spotted that gyms might find useful is a rental harness for $20 bucks. Called the Comet it features removable gear loops (kids don’t need to hang a rack on their rental harness anyway) and auto-locking buckles. It’s a pretty standard issue one-size fits all affair, but at that price that will fit most gyms’ meager budgets.

Revolution

CEO of Revolution, Clark Shelk, is always an interesting guy and offers some conversation worth devoting part of your day at the OR Show. The most interesting thing he told me was that Revolution holds are perhaps the most environmentally sound holds on the market.

Made out of recycled pre-consumer waste and sucrose based material you wont have to feel guilty for ordering a bunch of new Revo’s. And there are also some new shapes you should be buying. The best of these shapes are the new series of Balls, shaped by Shelk, which are a nice tweak on the old school Happy Fun Balls.

Asana

The great guys at Asana have entered the hold market. What they have are a nice assortment of bomber shapes. The standout shape in the 35-hold line is the new “Eye of the Oracle” mega feature. Yes, another eye shape at the same Show. But Jamie Sproull the shaper of the eye and president of Asana said, “I didn’t even know So Ill had an eye until they called me up and told me.”

Whatever, we don’t really care, both eyes are cool.

Nicros

Surprisingly Nicros had the most new shapes of any hold manufacture at the Show. Here are a few shots of the new shapes.

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