Metolius hold shaper and athlete Joey Jannsen was debuting the company's new Splines urethane hold shape series when he won the Setter Showdown climbing competition in Lexington, KY.
A Metolius athlete since 2014, this is Jannsen’s second victory in a row following his first place performance at Earth Treks in Golden, Colorado.
“We are all happy for Joey’s success in such a competitive field,” said Brooke Sandahl, vice president, Metolius. “It is important for Metolius to have an elite level route setter like Joey helping us develop our new commercial urethane climbing hold line. Joey’s insights into the needs of the commercial market is second to none, and we rely on that expertise to produce holds of the highest quality.”
Metolius is tapping into the skills and expertise of its expert route setters to design and develop the brand’s new commercial gym urethane line. The line has 248 shapes that are grouped into seven distinct collections. Each of the new holds was tested by Jannsen and was shaped for specific needs of the commercial climbing market.
In addition to working with Jannsen, Metolius brought on Tedd Thompson as Category Manager for the Training Division to lead product development for the new urethane hold collection, and pulled in the talent of veteran shaper Jim Karn.
Jannsen, Karn and Thompson spent 18 months in R&D talking to gym owners, route setters and climbers at climbing gyms across the country to identify the most important attributes of a climbing hold. The team’s key takeaways were that setters want good new shapes, holds made from urethane to deal with the rigors of the commercial environment, and the ability to match colors of existing lines. These needs guided Metolius’s development of its current commercial hold line, which launched earlier this year.
Founded in 1983 near the headwaters of the Metolius River, claims innovations in just about every category of rock climbing gear from traditional, sport, bouldering and big wall/technical alpine.
