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Guide book news posted by Adwin ~ 04.02.2008 12:15

The French website Grimporama has published a great background interview about our editor Bart van Raaij, the author of the new 7 + 8 topo guide. The interview is available both in English and in French. Furthermore, after too many months of absence from our webshop, we are happy to announce that the guides by Jean-Jacques Naëls, Bleau De Grès 6 and Au Grès des Trois Pignons, are on sale again.

Guide book posted by jibiji ~ 04.02.2008 15:07

It take the opportunity of this news to make some comments concerning the 7+8 guide I own :
There are some missing items that would prevent the climber from wasting time when looking for problems :
- last page : alphabetic list of sites only. A list sorted by "numbers" would be helpful. Indeed when I know where a place is but I don't remember the name of the place, I can see the figure on the map but I have to search for it in the the list, which sometimes takes a while.
- last page again : only the page of the area is indicated on last page. The page of the map should also be added to avoid turning the pages several times.
- scales on drawings : as it's not always the same, a scale should be added on bottom of each drawing to have an idea of the distances to walk.
- junction between sectors : on the general map it's not obvious to see the distance there is between sectors of a same area. It could be written something like "~xx meters to next sector" with an arrow for the direction.

These are improvement remarks, but I bought the new version so it means I really liked it !

Additional remark posted by jibiji ~ 04.02.2008 15:19

I forgot to mention the fact that indication of hill relief would sometimes help a lot ! Knowing that a boulder is on top or bottom of a hill makes a big difference to find it.

Improvement remarks posted by Bart ~ 04.02.2008 17:48

Thanks jibiji for your remarks. I will print them and think about implementing them in the event of a next edition. Three of them are not that hard to add. The scale and relief are indeed a big help and if I choose to add these, I should start working on that right know to have it finished in 5 years...

Relief posted by jibiji ~ 04.02.2008 18:51

I agree the relief is hard to implement. It's also difficult to combine with clarity. But concerning the data, existing IGN maps already give a lot of information, there might be not so much work. Relief could be put only on general maps where no boulders are pictured.
If you need some help or info don't hesitate to ask. I'm in the same situation as you, the only difference is that I'm coming from the south...

should you improve your guide ? [fr] posted by roum ~ 04.02.2008 22:46

To improve, do exactly the same for "best of 4 to 6"

Nothing else to say...Perfect !!!

Très bon topo ! posted by Bravo Bart ~ 01.03.2008 11:48

(je ne suis pas assez doué pour rediger le post en anglais)

Juste trois petites remarques sans grande importance :
- Les jetés sont souvent décotés : est-ce parce que les Hollandais sont grands !? (par ex: le danseur, entorse, ric et rac (Mt. Aigu) rainbow rocket ...)
- Certains blocs assez majeurs sont repertoriés en grisé alors que des bouses non ...
- Pourquoi n'avez vous pas ajouté certains sites du nord / nord ouest - notamment Chamarande où il y a quelques jolis 7 ?

Mais merci pour ce fabuleux travail !!

Thank you posted by Bart ~ 01.03.2008 15:02

Thank you for your nice words on my topo.

Some of the dynos are downgraded because you can see that a lot of climbers climb them more easy than 'real' boulder problems. I write my guidebook for all climbers and I try to give a grade for climbers of average hight. This might be the reason that most French climbers feel my dyno-grading is hard and Scandinavian climbers might think that my dyno-grading is soft. Le Danseur: I did this problem with people much smaller than me. I am 1.86. We all agreed that this problem is a great technical jump, but not that hard. The smallest of our group did it three times in a row for the picture. Entorse: most climbers register this problem as 7a+, some even 7a or easier. Ric et Rac: opened static and this way very hard but dynamic quite easy. Rainbow Rocket: with the new method (extra push off with the foot on the starting hold (see video) not 8a. The original method could be 8a though.

Please let me know which problems are listed in grey which shouldn't.

If there will be a third edition (I don't know if I will find the motivation to do this) I might include some of the north-western areas.

I am very glad with comments like this. I am allways looking for ways to improve my work. But again, a new edition is not planned at the moment.

Mistakes [fr] posted by jibiji ~ 31.03.2008 16:16

Some location of problems are not correct : "3 hommes et un coup fin" for instance, the number on the drawing is not correctly located. I found other mistakes but I don't remember, I'll be back for other comments !

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