Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2012 - 05:40pm PT
|
The first days at Wired Bliss, Barry and I worked together making benches and setting up shop. Then it was on to sourcing materials and making jigs and just nailing down procedures. Everything was hand made. I had looked into getting springs made, but I'd have had to buy too many and making them by hand was more economical. I also looked into getting fittings made and ran into the same story.
I think it was about that time that I was on the phone with Alan Watts and he told me that Doug (Metolius Mountain Products) was also going to make them and were calling them TCU's. I was blown away. I asked him what the f?, basically, and he told me, "Doug says the two of you worked together on it and decided he couldn't afford not to make them". I knew Alan knew better, but apparently Doug had given him a job and he was on Doug's side or somehow didn't care. I called Doug and asked him what he was doing and he said, We got a call from the Japanese (a group there were buying in batches for a club or something) and they saw some and wanted to buy 150 and that he also planned on wholesaling cheap to "penetrate the market". His position was that we worked on them together and he saw it as an "equal opportunity". The fairy tale was over. It was going to be a battle.
Cash was always very tight. Now I also had to get into as many stores as possible, before the Metolius knock offs. Selling to stores, they all expect a wholesale price, plus Net30 terms. We really weren't ready and did the best we could. We were always behind on orders. There wasn't enough cash yet to grow any quicker and we started losing our market share. Eventually we grew to making a couple of hundred units a month when it was busy in the summer. In the winters it got slow. The competition from Metolius was a serious blow. They already had ins at Adventure 16 and most of the stores in the country. Beyond that, all most people knew was that they were invented in Oregon. There was a small corrective factor in neutral parties who knew the truth, but it wasn't enough. I may have thought eventually we would win out, because we had the truth on our side and because I had essentially, already seen Metolius fail once.
The next Spring I had just developed the .4 and made a climbing trip with my girlfriend back up to Oregon and then down through Yosemite. At Smith Rocks I ran into Doug at the base of Picnic Lunch Wall and we had a conversation. He showed me a different style of TCU, with nicopressed cable loops around the axles and the thinner double cables soldered into a flat base. He said they were cheaper to make and worked just as well, but he was puzzled that nobody seemed to want them, so he went back to the original style. Like an idiot I told him about the .4 and that we were going up to 1 1/2 as well. A couple of months later a friend came in with a metolius zero he had bought on the road. I traded him for one of ours and started playing with it. Within a few minutes I had broken the welded fitting off of the axle. I called Doug again to warn him of the problem, but he didn't seem concerned. You'd have to place one upside down in a pin scar and then whip on it and he probably figured I just wanted him to look bad. I thought about promoting the issue, but just let it go. That wasn't who I was. I was still a climber.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2012 - 06:23pm PT
|
Retrospectively, I was still in good spirits about climbing. I'd run into Deucie again in the valley and he was psyched to come visit Flagstaff. I was also climbing at about my peak. On my last day I led Fish Crack on- sight and then top roped it, jamming the crack straight in. My girlfriend was having a bad day and didn't make it and got really pissed.
On the way home she was driving and we got pulled over for speeding in Tuolumne meadows. I thought she'd just get a warning and I'm pleading with her to stay calm, but then the officer came back and says, "Ma'am did you know that your drivers license is suspended?" She freaked and started just laying into the cop and screaming at him. We caught eyes for a moment and he motioned for me to get out and come talk to him. I came back and got in his car. I explained to the cop that she was on her period and had a bad day climbing and was really frustrated. Then I begged him not to give her a ticket. That I obviously had my hands full already. He asked if my license was valid. I lied that it was and he let us go.
Later, as we were passing a detention facility evidenced by multiple "Do Not Pick Up Hitch Hikers" signs leading out of Death Valley, she finally asked what we talked about. I was a moron and told her the truth, because I thought it was pretty funny. She freaked out again and told me "That's it! Get out" as she slammed on the brakes and pulled to the side of the road. I said, "OK! Fine! Just let me get my stuff!" I was incredulous, but ready for it to go down that way. It had been a very rocky relationship due to my being overlapped with her previous boyfriend. It had been a devastating yoyo thing and my heart was ready for closure. This would work for me... dumped mid desert, by a prison! I got out my pack, Ghetto blaster, box of tapes and my sleeping bag and closed the back of her truck. It was done and she started pulling away. I couldn't believe it, but it was perfect. After a short distance she stopped, reversed and much more calmly said, "Come on..." I reloaded my stuff and we drove home without further incident. We never spoke of it again. I think Deucie fell for her as well, but sometime later, when she and I were more "over". We never talked about it, but I think she may have hurt us both pretty bad.
Deucie's visit was a blast, and we did the standard tour, complete with Alpine Pizza and local's introductions. He was impressed and decided he'd move to Flagstaff and start A-5 Adventures here...
|
|
steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 06:33pm PT
|
Here's your three-sided stembox at Granite Mountain.
Magnolia Thunderpussy. Originally rated 5.8, now crept up to 5.9
The really hard first pitch of C.W. Hicks is to the left.
|
|
Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 07:02pm PT
|
This is awesome, the spontaneous illustrations by the peanut gallery is supercool.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2012 - 08:46pm PT
|
Yep, that's it... Magnolia Thunderpussy... out the right side there. Yeeee!
|
|
R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
|
|
|
Feb 16, 2012 - 08:52pm PT
|
It's almost Time to make the units (while bluesing out to The The - Soul Mining)
|
|
OlympicMtnBoy
climber
Seattle
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2012 - 01:31am PT
|
Wow, I'm really enjoying reading this thread. Thanks Steve, I've been on the edge of my seat for a few moments in there, please don't stop yet!
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2012 - 06:40am PT
|
The early Wired Bliss days were very special. Nothing was perfect, but it was good. The tasks themselve were all pretty basic. Some required a little skill and some not. There was some scrap at most stages including final assembly, and we usually had a couple of "2nds" that would get snapped up quickly. Everything on my rack was always for sale except my small bass nuts, And would be replaced by prototypes or 2nds. I was able to climb as much as I wanted and started getting some great people to help me.
The first employees were Barry (Ward), Matt Knopf, Jim Erdman, Alan Humphreys, Dave Insley, John Rapp, Todd Applewhite, Frank Wetherell, Bobby Dubois, Brent Fogelberg and (I'll fill in more as their names pop back into my head) at one point there were 13 people.
They all brought in their favorite tunes and we listened to alot of the same music over and over. Just like photos, music triggers memories and become themes for certain points in time. On my trip with Sean Olmstead he had a tape with early U2, The The, and Zebra. I'm easily taken back to that time. Earlier, in Bend it was Led Zeppelin's In the Out Door and Loverboy. In the Wired Bliss shop the first new arrival was Soft Cell's Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, which was the theme tape for the Flag gang's Yosemite trip back in 1985. We listened to Big Audio Dynamite, English Beat, Marillion, The Cure, the Meat Puppets and many others.
No one had a schedule. Everyone came in when suited them and worked as much as they wanted. For some, that was full time and for others, much less. There were no specific paydays. As money came in it got distributed. Sometimes someone would need more and go negative and other times we all waited. It was all cash under the table, kept track of on a chalkboard. The pressures from wholesaling so early, meant that we were never able to afford going completely legit or pay back my folks for their loan. There was only so much you could do. It made more sense to just get what we could out of it, and try not to think about what we were missing. The business aspects were not my strengths and still aren't.
I was a "shop guy", from the age of 12 when I got my first dirt bike and started tinkering. In 9th grade I took my first welding class, then machine shop and since then, always made sure that I was enrolled in classes that gave me access to the shops. By the time I was 15, I could fabricate most things I could think of.
I wasn't supposed to be racing motocross, but was anyway, and in 1979 the hot setup on dirt bikes was water-cooling. An air cooled bike would lose about 30% of its power due to heat, this is especially painful on a 125. All the bikes came air-cooled, but a few guys were machining away the fins and welding flat stock around them to form a water jacket. Then they would put on a small radiator behind a perforated front number plate. It cut the power loss to about 10% and was such a huge brakthrough that in two years, all 125's would come stock with water cooling.
I had bought a spare cylinder and did my own. When I was done I took it to the local shop to have the bore honed and while it was sitting on the counter Rob Muzzy walked in and saw it. At that time Rob was a motorcycle tuner who primarily modified motocross engines for flat-track racing. He also made exhaust systems that were used by many of the top pro racers. Working for him when you're 15, is a dream come true. He saw the cylinder and asked me if I welded it, how old was I and did I want a job. I only got to work for him in his garage for 4 months before he got hired by the factory Kawasaki road racing program and moved to Florida. He taught me a lot though, and introduced my to the small scale business model almost everyone starts with. In the garage, with workers paid under the table.
It had been that way with Doug at Metolius. When he decided to go legit and pay taxes it was a big surprise. I was supposed to get a paycheck for $250 and he hands me one for less than $200. Then he tells me it's so he can go legit. It took some explaining for him to understand that it meant the same as a cut in pay for me. I was very pissed. The timing was also really bad, because I had an abortion to pay for. I didn't tell him that, but after some discussion, I got him to maintain my pay rate and write me a new check. I should have seen it as a warning sign.
|
|
rick d
climber
ol pueblo, az
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2012 - 08:12am PT
|
Steve-and origins of the denim lined thin-hands crack in the shop?
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2012 - 02:54pm PT
|
Having Deucie come to town was like getting a big fun Christmas present. He was truly game for anything.
One time, I think it must have been part of a Tucson trip, he and I and Ira Hickman decided to go skydive at Marana. None of us had ever done it before, so the mandatory first jump was a static line jump from pretty low... like 3000 feet.
The instructor was a short for her weight, middle aged woman who, appropriately, took the subject very seriously. She also demanded full, eye to eye contact, no talking, hands on your laps attention at all moments. It was way more than Ira could handle without making jokes, and the next thing I know, he's getting chewed out. He was totally trying to comply, but Ira had kind of a "Matt Damon" look and just couldn't quite get the smirk off. I couldn't see what was happening, because I wanted to jump, and I could tell the only way that was going to happen was if I maintained eye contact with this control freak, sky-nazi. I was on probation by association and kept a very straight face as she erupted again and started to kick Ira out of the class. Deucie's cheek must have twitched and suddenly he was in the path of her fury as well. Both were kicked out and given back their money. I gave her my most innocent, obedient, yes ma'am, ass kissing look and was allowed to proceed. All good fun, not much risk, and it gets you in the air. The instructor was on the radio every second and I don't think I was allowed to make a single twitch without her say so.
Tucson was also the site of the annual "Beanfest" down at Cochise' Stronghold in the Dragoon mountains south of Benson. That place has a feel to it. I don't know exactly what it is... history? ghosts? I've found myself more in awe there, than even Yosemite. It could be just me. At one of the events, we split up to explore and scramble. I saw Bobby Wobbly (Dubois and I think maybe Jims Gaun and Erdman doing something reasonable so I went to investigate and followed Bobby up as he climbed. It was 5.7 ish and quite fun. Usually when you solo you have to climb by yourself. We chatted and Bobby seemed a little nervous. I was ok.
We had first generation 5.Tennies back then. They climbed awesome, but blew out quick and I think the importer (Chris??? something Cole?... help me), lost his shirt replacing them. Later models had more foam in the soles and were more of a scrambling only shoe. When we got the first ones, I remember going to the overlook with Jim Gaun and doing a few 5.11's in them to see how they rated. We were very impressed.
After leaving Bobby and Co. I headed up to the pass behind Rockefellow Dome. Rockefellow is just freaking massive! It's about 400 ft (?) tall and thrusts from the earth in a way that is somehow, just... humbling. As I popped over the summit into the "point of most awe", there was Deucie, also drop jawwed at the unfathomable impressiveness of the thing. The bright yellow lichens streaking the clean shear face seemed to dance slightly, mocking us in our insignificance. We exchanged a "Whoa!" and a "Ya... no kidding." and decided to scramble around the back way behind Rocko to head back down towards camp. I was in the lead first, then John then me again and we found a nice line, mostly clear of brush and with good, runnable talus. I was moving pretty quick, but John was on me close and giggling and so it was... Game on. I can't imagine moving any quicker. We were like a couple of gazelles. As we rounded behind the dome, our path, which was pure fall line, had steepened a bit and we started being faced with small drops in the 4-6 foot range. That simply meant touching with both feet for a moment and hd no affect on momentum. When the drops grew into the eight foot range it got a little serious. I remember thinking many times that was sketchy, but John was right there. The rhythm changed and the drops became the game. A couple of drops later we're both laughing out loud. Finally after a big drop of maybe 10 or 12 feet, I hear a whoa!! and the footfalls behind me faded. Our heart rates were about at redline and we eased up. It was hillarity in motion. The most fun I've ever had.
Later we were on a kayaking trip with Stan Mish and Bobby Becker up to the San Juan and Deucie wanted to paraglide off of the Mokee Dugway. A thousand foot sandstone escarpment with a very improbable, switchbacky road carved into its face. The spot he jumped from was a little ways down from the top, but it was nuts! I've always thought paragliding was a bad idea and in those days I knew of several fused ankles for reinforcement. To be on top of a cliff with a parachute that you have to inflate and get control of and then jump is serious business. Those of you who have seen John in serious mode will know what I'm talking about when I say he had his game face on. He did everything right and it still looked crazy. Truly at the mercy of the wind. At the bottom he had that wide eyed look of someone with massive adrenaline slowly dissipating from their veins... and a big smile, "Wooo Hooo!!!"
I was satisfied with what I had seen. I wasn't going to do that.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2012 - 03:11pm PT
|
Whatever happened to Ira Hickman?
I'll never forget the time he ran down the Peralta trail in the supes and ran full speed into a Barbed wire fence at thec parking lot. As I recall it just ricocheted him backward, with little effect. I came down the trail a few minutes later and he was laughing about it. He might still have been in high school....
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2012 - 05:01pm PT
|
This is some wild stuff. I recall there might have been some chemical enhancement on our talus running adventure. Fond memories.
|
|
R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
|
|
|
Feb 17, 2012 - 08:43pm PT
|
Tim Toula turned us all onto 5.tennies; they were pretty cool for sure.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2012 - 07:07am PT
|
One of our trips was to Las Vegas. It seemed to be one of those trips with more driving than climbing and we ened up at a remote canyon that one of the loacls wanted to check out. It as a whitish rock that looked like almost granite, but was more like bad sandstone. There was an obvious hand crack we climbed that would have been 5.9. after about twenty feet you passed from vertical crack into less vertical fractured blockiness. More holds appeared, but nothing you could pull on.
I wasn't our best outing, but on the way home we got to talking about gear. John said he'd been think about doing a slider type chock with a "sliding ball in a groove."
Note: my original post I wrote "rolling ball" and I am sure that both forms were discussed. As I am corrected on details, which can be important I will correct and note my posts accordingly.
I told him about a "Roller", I had made back at Metolius (before "Rock 'n Rollers"). It had a single roller about a quarter inch wide that rode in a matching groove in the wedge element. The one I made was all brass and it was the only thing I've ever seen that actually held in the precision ground slots of a milling machine table. In rock, the problem was point loading on the roller, which either fractured the rock or deformed the brass under any serious load. I suggested that a ball would be even worse, but if you cut it in half and let it slide instead of roll that it would have good surface area and still be able to articulate. John said "Wow. That's good, but it wasn't my idea. If you want to pursue that, go ahead." I was always open to the idea of a new product, and it seemed worth pursuing, so when we got back to town, I started playing around with it...
Earlier I had seen how John had tied cord around the triggers of his tcu's, for easier removal back in slots. It gave me the idea for the "Fumble-Proof" triggers that became standard very shortly afterwards. Most simple inventions have a moment of discovery lasting not more than a few seconds. A spot of clarity where old methods merge into the new one. In both cases John had provided a key stepping stone.
For the first prototype I wanted something flat, thin and strong that I could clip into or tie a sling on. I had an old Choinard "Crack-N-Up", so I cut the arms off of it and soldered on the new components. It was immediately apparent that I was onto something, but needed to scale it up and get it onto a cable somehow. We bought a milling machine for cutting the grooves and I made a short, stubby little cabled #2 prototype and proceded with more testing.
John had turned me onto a very useful item for gear testing called a "f*#kedness device" or "f*#kedness tester". It is not, I repeat NOT, called a "Funkness Device". What it is, is a good sized climbing hammer with a few feet of strong cable attached to the head and another carrabiner on the loose end. You could do one with webbing, but man! the Cabled F testers were really the ticket. What you did was place the gear to be tested in a crack and attach the loose carrabiner from the F tester to it. Then you made a mighty swing, bringing the hammer's mass to bear hard on the end of the non stretchy cable. It could create an impact force capable of breaking or deforming most any form of crack protection. The goal, if it was a chock, would be to have it fail at the cable or break apart, rather than pull out of the crack. It revealed the weak part of a piece and gave one a sense of how "F*#ked" it was. I also remember it being more dangerous than swinging an axe. I wasn't quite ready to use it on my new little trinkets. The first tests would be done in the real world of big wall climbing...
|
|
Dickbob
climber
Westminster Colorado
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2012 - 01:42pm PT
|
Steve,
Great thread. It brings back lots of memories. I learned true crack climbing at the Forks. Every summer weekend in the year 87 and 88 we went to Flag. Always had a lot of respect for the Flagstaff boys.
|
|
deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2012 - 02:26pm PT
|
Steve, your memory on the inventive aspects is amiss. What you write here is quite frank, yet different from what you said to me the last time we talked in the discussion of the patent; however there is more to the story. Perhaps it is time to get all this out in the open. Let me gather my thoughts on this painful subject.
|
|
JMC
climber
the swamp
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2012 - 04:05pm PT
|
bump. 5 sizes of TCUs for sale in 1989, and 2 sizes of rigid quads.
minor drift - John, this must have been an expensive catalog to make at the time, with the 4 page color insert, and staggering royalties to Jaybro and Xavier for their musings.
|
|
Steve Byrne
Trad climber
Flagstaff, AZ
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2012 - 07:30pm PT
|
Hi John,
It's coming up. I'm trying to remember as best I can from each step. The conversation in the car was the beginning. The patent comes after Mescalito, and we still have some good times left before then. The best stuff is coming up. I can't quite peg why I'm doing this now, but it started flooding back in my mind as a narrative, so I thought I'd go with it and get it down. Thanks for following this. It means a lot to me.
|
|
R.B.
Trad climber
47N 122W
|
|
|
Feb 18, 2012 - 08:03pm PT
|
Steve,
I fondly remember both you and John from BITD. Both of you contributed to the culture of not only the local Flag climbing scene, but innovative to the climbing world as well.
It is healing and important to retroinspect the past and use that to help with today and tomorrow.
Until later, RB
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!