The Mountains Aren’t Just For Climbing

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For any­one inter­ested in extreme sports and adven­tures, they may share the same ideas that the moun­tains aren’t only there to be climbed…

Moun­tain Bik­ing is a sport which con­sists of rid­ing bicycles off-road, often over rough ter­rain, using spe­cially adap­ted bikes that incor­por­ate fea­tures designed to enhance dur­ab­il­ity and per­form­ance in rough ter­rain.
Moun­tain bik­ing can gen­er­ally be broken down into mul­tiple cat­egor­ies such as cross coun­try (XC), trail rid­ing, all moun­tain, down­hill, freeride, dirt jump­ing and tri­als. The most pop­u­lar cat­egor­ies tend to be recre­ational XC and trail rid­ing.
Like climb­ing, this is an indi­vidual sport which can be a tough chal­lenge. It requires endur­ance, core strength and bal­ance, bike hand­ling skills, and self-reliance. Those advanced riders pur­sue steep tech­nical des­cents and, in the case of freerid­ing, down­hilling, and dirt jump­ing, aer­ial man­euvers off of spe­cially con­struc­ted jumps and ramps — usu­ally just to show off!

Dustin Schaad is a North Face Tech Rep and he shares his pas­sion for the sport on his guest blog.
“The moun­tain bike has taken me more places than I could’ve ever ima­gined. It’s given me amaz­ing memor­ies, incred­ible friends, pure joy and pain, adven­ture, taught me end­less les­sons, but most import­antly, it’s embed­ded PASSION in my life!” — Dustin Schaad

He shows how he wants to encour­age people to take up the sport, “Find it, live it, love it!”, and so has described his favour­ite rides that his has taken all around the world! The pic­tures are enough to make you want to take part in this extreme, ener­getic, excit­ing activity.

And if that wasn’t enough, this short film “com­bines com­pel­ling stor­ies with core action to cre­ate a shared exper­i­ence that unites all riders… Come join us!” This film cap­tures a Moun­tain Biker’s true way of life and not only has clips from the world’s best pros but also of new begin­ners who are just learn­ing to love the sport. It has been shot over two years and includes some of moun­tain biking’s most iconic, beau­ti­ful and breath-taking loc­a­tions.

“Strength in Num­bers is a rally call to con­nect all moun­tain bikers, regard­less of loc­a­tion or lan­guage or dis­cip­line. The film cap­tures a true way of life, from the world’s best pros to those who are just learn­ing to love the sport.”

So, are you ready to take part in a new ‘Moun­tain Sport?’

Forget Skydiving, Here’s Spacediving

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For many sky­diving is the ulti­mate adren­aline rush. Exit­ing a plane at 14,000 feet and freefall­ing towards the ground is an exhil­ar­at­ing sen­sa­tion. But how do you fancy sky­diving from a height of 120,000 feet? Well one Aus­trian man is plan­ning just that.

Felix Baumgart­ner is an Aus­trian sky­diver and BASE jumper, known for some unique achieve­ments includ­ing set­ting the record for the low­est BASE jump, the highest para­chute jump from a build­ing, and becom­ing the first per­son to cross the Eng­lish Chan­nel in free-fall in 2003, using a custom-made fibre wing. Baumgart­ner plans to jump from the edge of space, 26.7 km in the sky, later this year to become the first man to go faster than the speed of sound unaided by a machine. It will be the longest and fast­est free-fall in his­tory if it is successful.

Baumgart­ner holds the record for the low­est BASE jump ever

Felix needs to wear a pres­sur­ised suit for the jump, to main­tain air pres­sure and provide him with an oxy­gen sup­ply. It’s sim­ilar to those worn by NASA astro­nauts but is even tougher and more mobile. If the integ­rity of the suit is com­prom­ised, Mr Baumgartner’s tis­sue could swell and the mois­ture in his face could boil. It will also pro­tect him from tem­per­at­ures as low as minus 70c.

Lego Skydive

Image: Pasukaru76

If the jump is suc­cess­ful, he will beat a record set over fifty years ago by US Air Force Col­onel Joe Kit­tinger, who fell from a bal­loon at 31 km or 102,800 feet., and is one of Baumgartner’s advisors on the pro­ject. Last month Baumgart­ner did a pre­par­at­ory jump in Mex­ico from a bal­loon above New Mex­ico, at a height of just 71,500 feet, or 22 km. He landed safely eight minutes later, with the jump fur­ther test­ing his equip­ment for the big jump later in the year.

Spa­ce­diving was pion­eered by NASA, who spent time in the 60s research­ing the viab­il­ity of an orbital escape sys­tem for astro­nauts. Space para­chutes were designed fea­tur­ing per­sonal rock­ets and inflat­able cones to pro­tect astro­nauts upon re-entry into the earth’s atmo­sphere. This is where the idea and tech­no­logy for spa­ce­diving ori­gin­ated. Without the space­suits used on space­shuttles fall­ing from these massive heights would simply not be a possibility.

For most of us, 14,000 feet is plenty, as it was for John Bishop when he went sky­diving earlier in the month as part of his new TV show, ‘A League of Their Own’. Sky­dives from this height don’t require a pres­sur­ised space­suit and do not last long enough for jump­ers to break the sound bar­rier. Let’s leave that to Felix, who will do the jump later this year.

Alan Cairns writes on a num­ber of sub­jects includ­ing tan­dem sky­diving and kite­sur­f­ing.

Climbing Climbing Climbing

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Our pas­sion for climb­ing is essen­tial to everything we do.
Be it the sport itself, its his­tory or simply the essence of the sport…

OUR HERITAGE

“Here at Stone Mon­key we’ve always believed that life should be one big adven­ture, that’s why when we star­ted in 1994 we were inspired by con­quer­ing the world’s most extreme envir­on­ments, and it’s that sense of adven­ture, that unique thrill which still drives us today…

…Our clothes and accessor­ies are built for the adven­turer, the thrill-seeker, the rebel, and the indi­vidual in you. They’re unique: always designed with adven­ture in mind, but built for the life you live. You might not climb Everest in the clothes we make, but there’s a little bit of the spirit of Everest in them, even if you’re just chilling with your friends on the beach.  So whatever your adven­ture, live it in Stone Monkey.”

OUR CLOTHES

Many of the designs of our cloth­ing have been inspired by climbers and the moun­tains; Our sig­na­ture stamp of ‘8848’ marks the sum­mit of Mount Everest.

Stone Monkey in Stores

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Don’t for­get!

We aren’t just an onliner retailer — Stone Mon­key has been branch­ing out into stores all over the UK…  Leeds, Read­ing, Aber­soch — you name it and the chances are we are there … or at least some­where close!

Spot­ted any of our clothes in a store near you?!

 

Have you spot­ted any of our clothes in stores?
If so, send us over a pic­ture of the Stone Mon­key corners/displays you find — we would love to see how many people we are now reaching!

 

British Slalom Champion: Rob Bullen

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Here at Stone Mon­key, we are pleased to announce that one of our spon­sor­ships, Rob Bul­len, is now the Brit­ish Sla­lom Cham­pion 2012!

 

Rob achieved the title, des­pite have to ski with a broken thumb, which caused con­cern and many to con­sider get­ting him to with­draw from the rest of the cham­pi­on­ship as he was clearly strug­gling with the injury. But the plastic cast and the anti inflam­mat­ory pills and pain killers clearly did the trick!

The Super Com­bined Race star­ted badly when he fell at about the third gate but man­aged to get going again fin­ish­ing 5 seconds off the lead, which was really an impossible time to make up in the sla­lom run, espe­cially since one of the gates cracked his thumb dur­ing the early part of the run. He then had to do most of the course effect­ively one handed being unable to use his right pole and yet still got that best time. His aggreg­ate was less than a second off get­ting on the podium so clearly his sla­lom was on form.

He raced in the Giant Sla­lom and struggled as he was unable to push off at the start and also was cau­tious about touch­ing a gate with his hand dur­ing the run but man­aged to fin­ish fifth.

Win­ning the Sla­lom title was a huge achieve­ment.
Rob has pre­vi­ously had some podi­ums at the Brit­ish cham­pi­on­ships and won awards for being the first non GB Team racer in Sla­lom, but this win will be a great con­fid­ence booster for Rob and cer­tainly a good way to bring the Sea­son with the Brit­ish Team to a close.

 

We wish Rob all the best with his future train­ing. To find out more fol­low this link to his homepage.

Pier-Jumping Kitesurfer Brings Big Air to Worthing

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The kite­sur­fer who made head­lines by jump­ing Wor­th­ing Pier and Brighton Palace Pier is mak­ing waves yet again, announ­cing a new kite surf­ing com­pet­i­tion tak­ing place in Wor­th­ing this sum­mer. The Big Air Open will take place between 9am and 6pm on Sat­urday the 14th of July on Wor­th­ing seafront.

Lewis Crathern grew up in Wor­th­ing and was the young­est Brit­ish Pro Men’s Kite­sur­f­ing Cham­pion at the age of 20, des­pite never hav­ing flown a kite before the age of 17. He accu­mu­lated four Brit­ish Cham­pi­on­ships as well as a con­sist­ent Top 20 World Rank­ing, but it was his Pier jumps which really brought him atten­tion through news head­lines. After a suc­cess­ful career in kite­sur­f­ing, Crathern is now turn­ing his atten­tion to present­ing, com­ment­at­ing and event organising.

The Big Air Open will test how high kite­sur­fers can jump, and will con­sist of local and inter­na­tional tal­ent. Lewis Crathern con­firmed that he would not be tak­ing part in the event, which prob­ably serves as a relief for many par­ti­cipants, but would be judging and com­ment­at­ing. He said: “I am extremely excited about The Big Air Open, espe­cially as it takes place in my home town of Worthing.

“This will be an amaz­ing format for kite surfers of all levels to take on the wind and waves, show off their skills and com­pete for The Big Air Open Title.

“We have all worked hard on mak­ing this one of the best kite surf­ing com­pet­i­tions of the year.”

Image: Steve­voght on Flickr

Over thirty kite surfers of vari­ous levels are expec­ted to com­pete on Sat­urday 14th of July in Wor­th­ing, to see who can jump the highest and win The Big Air Open title. The com­pet­i­tion is held as part of the Olympic Torch Relay week­end, and offers an £800 cash prize for the win­ner. There are 36 places avail­able, twelve of which are reserved for local ‘wild­cards’ who will be selec­ted by committee.

The com­pet­i­tion is open to com­pet­it­ors of both sexes, and is based on 28 eight-minute heats. Three riders will be on the water in each heat, with 1st and 2nd place com­pet­it­ors advan­cing to the fol­low­ing round. The prize will be awar­ded to the win­ner from 8pm at The Tan­ger­ine Bar on Wor­th­ing seafront.

Part­ners of the event cur­rently include Wor­th­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil, Visit Wor­th­ing, Breathe Unity PR, Wind­ma­chine, Hybred Pro­duc­tions, United Magic Film Stu­dios, Tan­ger­ine Bar, Breathe Unity Net­work and The Bur­l­ing­ton Hotel. Since Crathern gained fame from his kite­sur­f­ing, he has begun a prom­ising new career as a com­ment­ator and presenter for kite­sur­f­ing events.

Alan Cairns writes on a num­ber of sub­jects includ­ing kite­sur­f­ing, bun­gee jump­ing and tan­dem sky­diving.

Ski Season is Not Over!

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In our last post, we all told you to hop along to the ski slopes over Easter…

How right we were that the ski sea­son wasn’t over yet!



Snow has been fall­ing in many areas — it feels more like Winter rather than Sum­mer time! This Boston.com Blog has been show­ing us how crrrrazy the weather has been this year, but how it has made the ski sea­son carry on…

There are still lifts to ride and slopes to slide.

But if you can’t reach any snow … then why not check out any indoor resorts? Our closest one to Stone Mon­key HQ is the at Traf­ford Park — Chill­factore.


Not only does it con­tain a pretty decent indoor slope for ski­ers and snow­boarders alike, the chill­factore offers more winter sports in the form of les­sons, tubing and the recent Ava­lanche!
Not only that, there is an area for climb­ing, plenty of places to eat and many cloth­ing shops such as Sub­vert and the North Face. (We really think we should belong here!)

So if you live in Manchester — why not check it out?!

 

Remem­ber, the ski sea­son is not over!

Easter Skiing

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“Easter on the ski slopes, hip­pity hoppity!”

No need to attend a fam­ily din­ner this sunday? Then why not make the most of your spare time and take off to the slopes…

Heather Burke explains the reas­ons for her want to ski over Easter here.

What are you wait­ing for?!

Hop hop.

Getting Twisted into Knots?

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Climbers take note!

Are you tired of being unable to suc­cess­fully tie a decent knot?
Too short, too long.
Too slack, too tight.
TOO DIFFICULT.

Well my friends… we have found a solution!

These are 5 basic knots and it is claimed they are ALL you ever need to know:

1. Bowline / One-Handed Bowline

2. Taut-Line Hitch

3. Threaded Figure-Eight

4. Double Fisherman’s Knot

5. Power Cinch Knot

They may sound com­plic­ated, but after a few tries and a bit of prac­tice you can eas­ily get into the swing of things. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3 … 4, 5!

Have a go at it yourselves and let us know how you get on!

For full details and any extra inform­a­tion, includ­ing videos and step by step pic­ture guides, see the Blog post on “It’s Tac­tical” by BRYAN BLACK.

Highest of Heights!

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We know that you all love climb­ing.
But could you handle this height?

This is the worlds tallest climb­ing tower in Neth­er­lands. (Ironic since it is one of the flat­test coun­tries around)
This wall stands in the town of Gronin­gen and rises 121 feet with a 36-foot overhang.

Climb on!