Last year I saw a video of Yuji Hirayama testing new Boreal shoes: Kintaro model. I was so surprised and didn’t believe that the shoes had such sticky rubber. Back then I wrote a post about it and it included a video.

I’m going to review these shoes as I’ve been testing it for a month or so. Usually I review the shoes when I receive them but now I know what it feels like.

First of all, I want to give my special thanks to Boreal for supporting me in my sports career. I have been receiving unlimited climbing shoes and I like to talk about it.

In my opinion the unboxing part is always exciting. It makes me happy!

The shoes are wrapped in plastic and it smells like -guess what- rubber. This model is a down turned shoe as you can see. Furthermore, the colours are wicked and easy to wear with the velcro straps. The design looks nice, so I rate it an 8 out of 10 because it’s quite an eye catcher.

How do I experience the shoe? It fits me well, however the sole of the shoe seems a tad thick. I still have a thick sole today and I climbed quite often with these shoes. The heel fits me better than the Boreal Falcon model. I also like the fact that the heel looks normal, no additional rubber on the back of the heel. With a month of experience I can tell you that the heel hook feels great. The toe hook is okay, not bad yet great. The shoe feels a bit small, but I guess it’s just a matter of getting used to new shoes.

When we talk about the Zenith rubber, it’s really sticky in the beginning. The video with Yuji is real because I’ve tested it myself. The shoes really do stick from tip to tip. It only works when the shoes are new or really clean. I can stick everything on it. Click here to find out more about Zenith rubber.

Anyway, the Kintaro model is a great additional model to the Boreal collection. The sole is a bit thick but the design, rubber and my experience of wearing these shoes are great. I’ve come to the conclusion that this model deserves a 8 out of then overall score. Pretty amazing right!

Since a few years I’m attending the annual mountaineering day which is held at the Nieuwegein Business Center. Yes this day is all about climbing, mountains, hiking, camping and so on.

Wonder what a Dutch teammember program looked like? Well to sum up shortly: receiving a new contract for the Dutch climbing team, announcements, introduction to the audience, demonstration climbing team, photoshoot and a meet & greet members. I’ve been busy all day long!

As you may have heard, we have a new member in our team! Hans Busker is officially added to the boulder team, welcome dude!

On the right our new team member: Hans Busker

Our team is incomplete on this photo because I took a snapshot at a wrong moment

I find it worthy to mention that we also had to say goodbye to Casper ten Sijthoff, which I think belongs to one of the best competition climbers of the Netherlands. But I’m sure he can take good care of himself and won’t stop climbing.

The demonstration in the climbing gym went well after we got introduced to the audience by speaker Joost Hofman. I climbed a few routes in this cold gym. The holds were so cold I couldn’t feel my fingers after 2 routes. We also took a new groupphoto with our team. I wonder what the result will look like.

The rest of the day was more or less a meet & greet moment to everyone. It was fun walking around and I got challenged by my teammembers so many times to climb on the Climbstation. I climbed 100.6 meters and made a handzip. Too bad, but good training though. Tabitha Buma won by a few more meters: 109 meters. Congrats after all!

More photos are available on the Dutch climbing team Facebook page. Have fun looking around!

I recovered quite well from the 100% boulders event from last week. It was a good training session. This week I didn’t climb 5 times a week but just two times. This morning I woke up and ate some grapes and a sandwich before it was time to peddle my way to Monk Bouldergym.

I arrived just on time and said hello to Teun Keusters, Ulf Lennertz, Daan Groskamp and Vera Zijlstra. It was fun to hang around. Not much later Vera unlocked the CTO area where I changed my clothes and got ready to rumble.

Today I figured it was fun to solve boulder problems with Vera. Most of the time she could catch up with me pretty well. We used my topo guide and climbed like maniacs.

Luckily I managed to flash some hard problems, saving me some skin for the rest of the boulders. Actually I was quite proud of myself whenever that happened haha. Every small success should be celebrated.

I didn’t have any tactics today. I knew it was quite hard to go for the best 8 problems so I set my mind to climb as much as possible. It was my only goal for today. Climb until I’m out of time!

Vera quit a bit earlier but I kept going on. I didn’t have much skin problems. More or less my feet started to hurt from wearing the awesome Boreal Kintaro so long.

Anyway, later I ran into photographer Tom Doms. He wanted to take a few shots and you’ll see the photos in this story as I’m writing it. I was finishing up the easy set problems in my last hour. Sometimes I was just staring at the wall, because it was so ‘Dusty’.

In my last hour I still had to finish about 31 problems. About 10 problems were easy problems and the rest were 7a or harder. Vera was filling in my problems and supported me, thanks for that!

In my last problem I felt a bit tired. It was a black problem on the competition wall. I had to put a lot of effort in this one. I almost fell out of the problem however I didn’t want to give up and try it again. I just needed to put my left foot next to my left hand and stand up. Yeah I managed to do it and sent it! Awesome!

According to my topo guide, I climbed 76 problems out of 90. Tired but satisfied about my performance!

I remember I climbed 80 problems last year, so I was hoping it was enough in my category. I handed in my score form and went to do some groceries. 30 minutes later I received a text message from Vera that the price ceremony had already began! I was warming up some soup and haven’t started yet. Oh well, I got to hurry and peddled back to Monk Bouldergym.

Pheeew, I was just in time for the price ceremony. They started to hand out prizes for several categories. I was waiting for the category: Male most climbed boulders. And finally Joris Klinkenbijl started with number 3: Tim Reuser. I knew he climbed 74. 2nd was Elko Schellingerhout, he climbed 75 problems. Nr 1: Truong Ngo. Hey that’s me! Yeah! I climbed 76 problems, woooow that was a close call. I received 7 bags of Moon chalk. Thank you Dust 2012. You can find the rest of the results here.

More photos of Tom will be soon available on his Facebookpage.

It’s time to get some rest. I had oodles of fun climbing the problems. I’ll climb the rest in my spare time. So see you around at Monk!

I believe I climbed on the following days: Tu, We, Th, Fr, Su, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Tu, Th and Sunday.
Meanwhile my fingers looks very calloused, as it should be when you climb this much. However the main question is: Am I fit? I could test my endurance yesterday during a competition called – 100% bouldering – at The Hague.

This competition wasn’t mentioned on my calendar but I added it later on. The climbinggym was build in a boulder paradise. The rules were simple. 100 divers problems, from easy until hard and each problem was worth 1 point.

Photo by Klimmuur Den Haag

Eventually I managed to solve 95 problems within 4 hours and ended in the finals together with Ulf Lennertz, Youri van Vliet and Tim Reuser.

After a good break, it was time to climb the finals. The finals contained 4 problems with a limit of 20 minutes. There were no other rules though. Everyone could climb at the same time. I managed to send 2 problems. Problem #2 was a bit hard for me, I managed a zone hold. And I was too tired to solve problem #1.

Boulder #1, photo by Jessica Vegh

Boulder #3, photo by Jessica Vegh

It was just too hard to bring up the tension after so many problems. Tim managed to send 3 problems and won the competition. I ended on the 2nd place and Youri became 3rd. The female finals was won by Mirthe van Liere, followed by Elena Belova on the 2nd place and Aniek Lith on the 3rd place. I was content about the competition, climbed a lot and feeling quite sore in my biceps and shoulders today.

To answer my question I raised before, I think I’m quite on my way of getting fit. I’m quite convinced yesterday that I should attend the Dust event because it’s a local competition. I was just in time to sign myself in.

I’m going to climb some at Monk Bouldergym. See ya’ll on Saturday!

What did you do when you got up? I freshened myself up this morning, ate breakfast and turned on my computer as usual. Next I checked my favourite webpages and spotted a few nice movies to share.

Check this out, the well known climbers Adam Ondra and Paul Robinson. Don’t forget to check out the other video boulderers, Daniel Woods, Guntram Jörg and Nalle Hukkataival, who are doing their very best on video.

Enjoy!

It’s nearly Christmas. It wouldn’t be the same without this custom made card especially for you.
I hope you’ll have a nice time come weekend and I wish you all the best and a healthy 2012!

The youth of today, 175 kids (!!), are performing right now at Monk! Unfortunately you can’t sign up anymore, it’s full, however you can enjoy the ambiance though!

Will you be around? I’m going to drink some Milk & Fruit juice to warm up my voice. I’ll be announcing some news and eventually hand out prices to the best boulder kids of the country.

See you around at Monk!

Impression photos:

Check out Facebook for more photos!

I just realized it was exactly a month ago when I posted a story on my blog. Well lucky you, because I have an update with lots of photos!

I’ve been gone for 3 weeks on a business course in Ohio University in Athens.

3 Weeks no climbing went quick although sometimes it felt like I was in the States for months. Working in different high performance teams every week was oodles of fun!

It’s awesome to be with 22 colleagues, going out bowling, watching ice hockey, american football, playing pool games, experiencing Black Friday, shopping at Easton/Jeffersonville, having breakfast/lunch/dinner and so on.

Photo by Maaike Brinkhof

The professors and coaches were really nice and I can’t wait to translate my theory into work experience!
To end this trip I received an Ohio University certificate last week yeah!

Professor Michael Martel & Truong

Truong & colleague Wim Hofland

Truong & Professor Doug Wistendahl – Ceremony photos taken by Maaike Brinkhof

This week my team won the Sogeti‘s best idea/service. All our effort has turned into proud. It’s a great work experience and I won’t forget it ever again!

Sogeti 62

Anyway, I’m back in the Netherlands! I missed out on a lot. I had to watch a compilation video of the nationals and refresh the results’ page to check out the results…

I must say I was quite surprised about the women’s results. The men’s results are quite obvious. It’s never too late to congratulate everyone who participated though, so congrats haha.

Meanwhile the international competition season has come to an end. I guess that’s a good thing, so I won’t miss out on more international competitions. I guess that’s it.

What else is on my calendar?
Well next Saturday I’ll have a mic in my hands during the Youth Open event at Monk Bouldergym. I’m also planning to team up with teammember Vera to join Monk’s annual Klim Quiz a Gogo!

This event will be held on December 18th at Monk Bouldergym. Hopefully we’ll score better this year!

See you around!