‘Several holds are reinforced with glue’ ≠ chipped, in my view. Most hard limestone sport routes are reinforced with glue. The Joker is reinforced with glue. The route could well have manufactured holds too, but that would be different from existing holds being reinforced.
An interesting comment:
La Dura Dura” has at least 10 holds made completely out of sika on a blank wall. And we are not talking here about consolidated holds! A good friend tried it a few years ago. This route is definitely hard as hell, there’s no doubt about it… The video generated millions (?) of views and a lot of money. Shouldn’t the fans and viewers know the whole story about this route? Can a totally manufactured route be a King Line? I seriously doubt it…
https://www.8a.nu/news/alex-huber-chipping-interview-xt86p
‘Several holds are reinforced with glue’ ≠ chipped, in my view. Most hard limestone sport routes are reinforced with glue. The Joker is reinforced with glue.
Perhaps 'chipped' is the wrong word, but I think it is good to be clear when a climb has glue or artificial holds on it, and to what extent it has been used. A bit of an impossible task to document fully, but good to try because I think there's a fairly common misunderstanding around the level of work that goes in to preparing climbs, particularly limestone sport. I think there's a bit of stigma around saying something is chipped or reinforced, but in practice lots of really popular climbs wouldn't exist as they do without a tasteful application of glue.
Indeed. Just need to be clear about the difference between reinforcing what was already there (pretty standard practice on the lime) and committing the ‘ultimate sin’ of manufacturing new holds for the purposes of making a climb easier. The ‘chipped’ tag on CH should be exclusively for the latter in my view.
imo the line between them is pretty thin really. Say you have a fragile flake that would have certainly fall off under bodyweight, but you use a load of glue to turn it in to a usable hold. I'd say that hold has been created in much the same way an enhanced pocket has been created.
Obviously there are degrees. Blatantly drilled pockets in the middle of nowhere and holds made from 100% sika being pretty grim, but subtly comfortised pockets and mostly stable features getting a bit of glue to make sure they hang around long term being pretty acceptable imo.
Not sure if you've climbed there (you're not missing out on much 😅) but some of the sport routes on garage buttress at stoney are good examples. The rock is pretty shattered and the FAs have used glue to reinforce some holds, but the routes basically end up following the line of holds the FA decided to glue up because everything else has fallen off!
Blatantly drilled pockets in the middle of nowhere and holds made from 100% sika being pretty grim
This is my interpretation of what the chipped tag should be used for. I think the bar of evidence for wielding the ‘tag of shame’ should be pretty high too. Don’t want to defame anyone or get into deep shit for doing so!