Climber type quiz / The Crimp Reaper

What a Crimp Reaper is like

You come for the home crag's cruxes while everyone else is at work. A few big midweek days, nearly all of them aimed at the hardest lines you know, and you know them in detail: which crimp, which foot, which conditions. Patience isn't your mode; intensity is. The grades below your limit are a warm-up, and when the project goes it's often with nobody watching.

Take the quiz: are you a Crimp Reaper?

The four traits behind the Crimp Reaper

Every climber type is four letters, one from each pair. The Crimp Reaper is HBCD: Homebody, Burst, Ceiling and Weekday.

Homebody Where you climb: Homebody, not Explorer

Most of your climbing happens in one place. You know its problems, its conditions and its landings, and that depth is worth more to you than a longer list of places visited.

Burst How your days fall: Burst, not Metronome

Your climbing comes in big days with gaps between them. When you get out you stay until your skin is done, and a quiet few weeks before the next one is normal.

Ceiling What you go for: Ceiling, not Pyramid

You aim at the top of your grade. Warm-ups are short, the day is built around one or two hard lines, and the easy circuit barely shows up in your log.

Weekday When you get out: Weekday, not Weekend

You get out midweek, when the crag or the gym is quiet. Empty landings, no queue for the classic, and conditions picked on your terms.

What the Crimp Reaper's kit has to handle

• Homebody: a brush that stays in the bagClimbing the same problems week after week means your own chalk builds up on the holds. Brushing after your session keeps the home circuit worth coming back to.
• Burst: skin care for the day afterBig days end when the skin does. A salve the same evening is the difference between climbing again in three days and waiting a week.
• Ceiling: a way to warm up fingers at the cragGoing straight to hard lines asks a lot of cold fingers. A portable block lets you load them properly before the first real attempt.

Types close to the Crimp Reaper

Change one letter and you get a different climber. These four each share three traits with the Crimp Reaper.

• The Crusher (EBCD)Explorer instead of Homebody. Travels midweek for the hard lines and gets them done.
• The Sendsei (HMCD)Metronome instead of Burst. Patient and precise on the hardest lines at home, midweek.
• The Dirtbag (HBPD)Pyramid instead of Ceiling. At the home crag on a Tuesday, sending all day.
• The Heavy Hitter (HBCW)Weekend instead of Weekday. Saturday at the home crag, straight to the hard stuff.

The Crimp Reaper's opposite

Flip all four letters and you get The Globetrotter (EMPW): a steady run of weekends, a new crag each time, lots of sends.

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