I love the mooncup so much that I have actually reviewed it on my normal blog. I think everyone should know about it! Ok, maybe not boys…..
Use this link, http://www.mooncup.co.uk/wc.php?u=2354, if you want to buy as each sale made through it earns me a little commission, which I will spend on stuff to be used in my forthcoming voluntary work in Bolivia (I won’t bore you with the details here, but this is the charity I will be working with http://amanecer.rd123.ca/).
What an ugly colour! was all I could think, walking out of the Urban Rock climbing shop with a pair of 5.10 Anasazi Verde climbing shoes in my hand. I had just spent hours in two different shops talking to salespeople with variable knowledge and friendliness (the girl in Ellis Brigham, Westfield, was very pleasant and did well at pretending to have a clue; the guy in Urban Rock was as usual stand-offish and ‘know-it-all’ but very knowledgeable and helpful in his own way, once I’d convinced him I wasn’t a complete novice).
What I wanted: a pair of shoes, a step up from my first ones, which would help me to access some more technical climbing (moving up from 6a on the lead wall and trying some harder, more overhanging boulder problems). Not too aggressive, but just enough that I couldn’t blame my climbing shoes for any lack of progress.
What I got: a great little shoe that fit me perfectly (squeezes my feet well but no hot-spots that cause specific pain), with 5.10′s really good, ultra-grippy rubber and weird ‘magic fingers’ heel, for plenty of heel-hooking fun. Several very experienced climbers have commented on my good choice of climbing shoe, so I feel well sold to.
To be honest, my only complaints are the utterly minging colour and the fact that they’re lace ups, which mean that they take ages to put on and take off in between climbs (but they’re tight enough that I need to!). I did try on the velcro version, but due to some anomaly in my foot shape, they were proven to slip off my heel should I do a heel hook.
Other reviews I have read say that the black trim comes off very easily, but two months of climbing 3 times a week, along with a little outdoor wear and there is no evidence of this as yet. Being 100% synthetic they haven’t really stretched out much either, maintaining their shape well so far.
Verdict: GREAT!
I was going camping at the weekend and needed a tent quick! My friend said that hers was a three man tent, but I felt I’d quite like my own space and wanted to stop borrowing other peoples’ equipment (lucky I thought that really, her tent was barely big enough for two!). So browsing the websites, I found that Blacks had a massive tent sale on and several were under £50.
I was looking for something small and cheap that would keep the mild weather off (I’m a very fair weather outdoor person and not really the type to go camping in all weathers). Along comes the Vango Atlas 200 tent.
Pros:
Cons:
In general, I was very pleased with my impulse purchase: it’s perfect for little old me going off on my tame weekend jollies with my friends. I wouldn’t take it trekking in the Himalayas though!
I have discovered a website, great for anyone who needs fun educational things. Cambridge Educational Toys may not look like much, but has a fantastic range of equipment and toys to add fun to many an infant classroom (there might be older stuff on there, but I didn’t really look, being as infants and special needs are my current interests). As well as the good range, the lady who runs it is great! She runs it from home, keeping long hours to receive orders, which she dispatches very quickly (my item was ‘out of stock’ on Sunday evening, yet I still received it by Wednesday!). She’s very personable on the phone and is very keen to help you out.
To top it all off, I am very pleased with my Monkey Weather chart, as is the friend, whose knew reception classroom I bought it for. Who wouldn’t be?!
The La Sportiva Arco Velcro were my first pair of climbing shoes. I bought them sooner in my climbing ‘career’ than I planned, because they were on sale. They were marked up as £39.99, reduced from £69.99, so I ‘snapped up a bargin’, assuming that they must be a halfway decent shoe. They’ve been pretty comfortable (possibly too much so for real ‘technical’ climbing) and have got me up to climbing 6s indoors. I have had them for seven months and have only climbed indoors in them, but I have had to retire them as the toes have given in (first the rubber from the left toe peeled off, then the inside split, now the right shoe is following suit).
I have to admit to being a little disappointed in how quickly they’ve given up the ghost. I climb quite a lot (4 times a week for several hours at a time), but I was expecting a bit more durability. I have noticed however, that they continue to be sold ‘on sale’ for £39.99, seven months later. Does this perhaps explain the perceived shortness of life?
Overall I would say they were a great starter shoe at their ‘sale price’. £40 to get you by – without hiring smelly hire shoes for £2.50 a time – when you don’t really know what it is you’re looking for in a climbing shoe, seems reasonable. I have been wanting to upgrade for a while, but haven’t felt confident enough that my climbing merits a new pair, but now I have the perfect reason!
I have just bought a pair of Red Chilli Spirit VCR (if I’m honest, the shoes I wanted from the beginning!), so we’ll see how they go. Probably still not the most technical shoe, but I hope they will serve my purposes.
