Review > Project Holds > Jugs

If you read the news section a while back you'd have seen this:

It's the jugs from Project Holds, I've been talking with them for a while and now we have a couple of their sets on the wall... we're the first people in Canada to get them as far we we're aware... and from the start as soon as you see the holds you are going to gravitate towards the monsters that are the holds that range from XL1 and the XL2 because they look like huge door handles... and when we say door handles we mean door handles for giants, they're not just big they're plain massive.
Even when you've put these holds down you're going to see that the smalls through medium to large sets are all big enough for anyone to grab onto, some of the holds are a little slim, and would be hard to hold onto on say a roof... but generally you're looking at 2 finger pads or deeper on every hold.What we started with (that's Eve and Noodles climbing at the start of the video) is all of the huge holds across the roof with some intermediates, and then a trail around the wall. This was fun, Eve had trouble with the holding and swinging about that Noodles is used to, but not as much fun as it could have been.



So Noodles decided to reset the entire wall, he took everything off, nothing stayed on the wall... he started with these holds and set a route that rings around the entire wall, but also has a second ring that you can link into that starts on our box feature. Now this is better, you end up with a long traverse / boulder route that means you can get a good burn on... and then to make it even harder than it is, Noodles added quick draws... so now you can clip a short length of rope that hangs around the climbers waist either at a predefined position or when someone shouts "clip", or in the case of the following video at predetermined places!



Either way you put these holds, they're possibly some of the best jugs we've come across, skin friendly and just easy to use, there's not a sharp edge on them and they're nothing but a hoot to climb on. There are alot of holds on the market, and wether you're a gym owner or a homewall owner we suggest you get your hands on some of these, before other jugs that we've mentioned... and that's a hard hard thing to say when you see some of the holds we have. Louie Anderson shaped them, so it's just a case of letting your mind go wild... we'll update when we take these to the gym, because Noodles has some big dyno / brutal toe hook plans for the route he's going to set :P

SUGGESTED USES



Ooooof, without sounding like a broken record you can pretty well put any of the holds from any of the sets... anywhere you wish. Some of the smaller holds are challenging on the roof, but are by no means not doable. If you've got a lot of younger climbers or inexperienced climbers in your gym get these, they're not going to have any trouble getting up to the top, if you want to set some monster all points off dynos then again look no further... with the large holds you'd have to be almost blind to not hit the sweet spots :)

OVERALL BUILD
From the Project Holds logo on the holds, to the little imprinted arrows that tell you which way they should be rotated these holds have excellent build quality. There's a few floors in a couple of the holds but that's from being dinged during shipping, other than that they're superb! The color is a little lack luster from what you see on the website, so we'd suggest that you ask for a real bold color to make these stand out, mind you if you're getting the larger holds it doesn't matter what color they come in as they are totally unique and will make everyone stop and look at them

The texture is hard to describe, it has a very fine sandpaper feel, quite similar to a sandstone texture, it's friendly on the skin, and it needs to be considering how large the gripping area is.
Bolt placements on the smaller holds are nice and centered, and on the larger holds they're supplemented with a screw placement (which you will need to use) to stop the monster handles from spinning!! Everything was flat backed and there wasn't a problem with getting these onto the wall


Here's a break down of the weight of the sets:

• Smalls are 2.5lbs
• Medium 1 are 2.6lbs
• Medium 2 are 2.5lbs
• Large are 4.9lbs
• XL are 19.2lbs
• 2XL is 7.2lbs
  

WHAT IT'S MADE FROM
Urethane... pure urethane. And considering the weight of the box (and the destroyed nature of it when it arrived) it's a strong mix, we were expecting more breaks and dings! We've tried to over tighten the largest hold and go nowhere near to snapping it, if we continued tightening we were going to break the t nut before the hold

RATING
NOODLES SAYS
Getting praise from us is sometimes hard, I've been looking at these holds for a while and it's taken a long time to get them. Project Holds is pretty well unknown in Canada, which is a surprise as they have a good catalogue of holds... but thus far i've not seen any, other than our wall of course :P But I digress, getting praise from us is sometimes fickle, as we see alot of holds and we remain objective in reviewing them... this time it was extra hard because all I wanted to do is stick these on the wall and bounce around all the time, not look at the backs of them, and the color. It took me a while to calm down once I opened the box because even though I'd seen videos and pictures I wasn't quite prepared for what I unwrapped... I honest to god sat there and just looked at the biggest jug and was in awe! It's heavy, sure, but maaan is that thing a big ol ring that just screams DYNO. Soon as Chris turned up I showed him that monster first and polite decorum stops me from printing what he said, to say he was surprised is an understatment... and that's before we get to the Shellshocked that are on the wall, that Wedge shape then sent us is just wild.

Sorry, I'm starting to sound like a teenage girl here.

Surprised? Yes, very
Do I want the entire range of Projects holds now? Yes please
Should you go and buy these holds? I'd lend you the money if I could!

Pure and simple, and whilst still being objective... I've not been blown away by a full set of holds for a long while. The Revolution jibs and the Contact WOTW2 (War of the Worlds 2) are amazing, amazing holds... the Project stuff is in the same league.

CHRIS
And I thought the War of the World's are huge. For these monsters we need a whole new word....gigormous. Say it with me kids...gi-gor-mous. This isn't the first time Louie (in case you're not aware, Louie shapes holds for numerous companies) shapes have arrived at the door, and we couldn't have expected anything like it, we sat there in amazement. When I saw them at first I was skeptical about the one bolt placement on the larger holds, but once its on the wall there is very little give on the hold and on screw is all that's needed to keep it in place.

Now the whole range is great and I'm surprised that Project doesn't have a bigger market share, or that we've not seen them before up here, Noodles gave me another surprise when he told me that it was a small company with Charles running the whole gig, awesome job Charles.

So back to the holds.

I don't want to bore you with how much we love these holds (I think Noodles has done a good job already) so I'll keep it short and objective: They look great, skin friendly and well priced. If you've got the budget, buy the whole range :)

PROS

• Good for any angle... even the small holds are huge
  
• Project have a "larger is better" sizing policy once you get into the XL+ sizes, you get more than you bargained for!!
  
• The large shapes are real eye openers, set a route and people will flock to it
  

CONS

• Full sets are a little heavy, go for economy shipping if you can
  
• Ask for a real good color that has a nice hue, we didn't and although the holds stand out, due to their shape they would be better if they were brighter!!
• Anything above a medium is going to hog your wall space, so if space is tight, stay in the small / medium range! (That being said, the XL's are great on the roof)
  

PRICE

• Small set has 5 holds for $39
• Medium set 1 & 2 is 5 holds for $49
• Large has 5 holds for $69
• The XL is 5 holds for $139
• The monster 2XL is a single hold for $69