19 December 2022
Chicken Deluxe reclimbed as a 9a+ by Lucien Martinez
Lucien Martinez has removed all but two sika holds from Eric Siguier's unrepeated Chicken deluxe (8c+), from 2002, creating a hard 9a+, in Saint-Antonin. Previously the editor-in-chief of the French Magazine Grimper has done ten 9a's and one 9a+. Fanatic Climbing has the full story.
(c) Arthur Delicque
"For me, the story started when I got it into my head to repeat this 8c+ which was one of the very last routes I hadnโt ticked at Supermanjoc. I broke two sika holds during my first go, just by pulling on them, and thatโs when I and Fabrice (Landry) started thinking that it might be possible without sika. With the agreement of รric Siguier, we then removed fifteen sika holds (perhaps 17) with a hammer (they came down very easily). There are two that we decided to keep despite everything because, unlike the others, the sika was actually reinforcing a natural hold, so breaking the sika would have meant also breaking the rock itself. For the first of the two holds, it would have made no difference to remove it. For the second, we are not 100% sure that the route would have been possible without. We hesitated a lot and finally told ourselves that we were going to play it smart and leave them on. So no, we canโt say that the route is completely natural (there are two sika holds left) but I donโt think we could have called it natural either if we had removed them too."
"For me, the story started when I got it into my head to repeat this 8c+ which was one of the very last routes I hadnโt ticked at Supermanjoc. I broke two sika holds during my first go, just by pulling on them, and thatโs when I and Fabrice (Landry) started thinking that it might be possible without sika. With the agreement of รric Siguier, we then removed fifteen sika holds (perhaps 17) with a hammer (they came down very easily). There are two that we decided to keep despite everything because, unlike the others, the sika was actually reinforcing a natural hold, so breaking the sika would have meant also breaking the rock itself. For the first of the two holds, it would have made no difference to remove it. For the second, we are not 100% sure that the route would have been possible without. We hesitated a lot and finally told ourselves that we were going to play it smart and leave them on. So no, we canโt say that the route is completely natural (there are two sika holds left) but I donโt think we could have called it natural either if we had removed them too."
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