Out of the box and onto the wall you're going to have trouble hanging onto these holds, a real hard time, but once you get these things caked and I mean CAKED in chalk then you're in a whole world of fun! Yeah Climb It advertises with us, and yes we've done a bunch of reviews for them... but I / we / climbingholdreview will point out one thing about these holds: they're amazing, and that's not because of ads or anything else... it's because they're sick, straight up sick. Well slick... and then sick. As per usual the 45 degree wall got the holds first, there was no way these holds were going anywhere near the roof, there's not enough to hold onto, but on the 45 you can hold, pull and set some good routes. Until this man turned up:
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and as you can see he turned the 2xl the largest of the holds, and the crux of the route upside down... then it became something beyond technical and strength alone, it just became something mental; as you can see!
Once we stopped mucking about and realised that we weren't going to finish that, we set the hold back to normal and let other people have rip at it, most people liked the route, loved the holds but found it hard.. so we changed the route and let people have rip at it. With normal feet it seemed easy enough for most people, so Jacky and Chris started only using a start foothold and then hooking for the rest of the route.
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Overall once you get past the initial slickness of the holds you're going to find shapes are are very real rock in feel and texture, they're quite possibly the best "real rock" shapes out there, normally when a hold is described as being real rock feeling it means sharp edges and something
that's going to be a little brutal on the finger tips, in the Silverado Cobbles case it's nothing but smooth shapes and clinging on in a whole bunch of different manners so you get the send. We've racked our brains to find a place that we've climbed on real rock that is something like these holds, and other than Dan Osman climbing a waterfall (anyone remember that gem) there's no where we can think of.. unless of course you're strapping on a snorkel and then climbing upstream in a river (something we suspect Louie may actually be doing) It's a shame there's not more of these holds, we guess that Climb It were waiting to see what the impact of these shapes were and how well they'd sell, well Louies got a river, so I suspect there will be more of these coming. Natural shapes molded from real rock is always going to be a winner, add the fact that years of water flowing over stone is going to make some smooth shapes means you're going to end up with some comfortable climbing, as long as Captain Stupid doesn't think that an under cling on a smooth hold on a 45 degree overhang is a good idea :P (oh and we're going to reset that problem, it's got to go down at some point!)
Ah were would we suggest you put these? Well to 45 no worries, 60 yeah sure no problem.. it'll be hard but more than doable with some 
screaming; anything more than that is going to be a real test of your foot work and sloper strength. These holds aren't all slopers, most of them are incut and super smooth, there isn't a single sharp edge on them... they were molded from stones from a river, so water running over what was once sharp rock is now smoooooooth!! As a representation of "real rock" these are some of the best shapes out there, setters are going to have a blast making routes that challenge everyone. Noodles set with these last week and we'll have a video and pictures of the route that he set fairly soon, can anyone say mantel or rock-over? Yeah, that's what he set!
And it looks porous, but it's slicker than you think, nice smooth ridges and the only sharp edge is the one that hits the wall. Like I said, hard to explain, but wonderful to hold, consider that these are the stones that the holds were molded from (click on images for super view):
sent the whole line. Its safe to say that there are a wide range of sizes and even when you look at the regular Silverado Cobbles, the set alone has a lot of potential.
We try to be objective in our reviews here at climbingholdreview, but (as with most of Louis shapes), we couldn't help but praise them just a little. After we managed to stop drooling on ourselves, our imagination went wild trying to figure out where to set the holds and decided that it was on to the 45! Now despite their size (most are open hand pinches) we figured that we could turn them up the wrong way and get up with no problem and as you can see from us repeatedly trying to stick the big boy on the 45, we underestimated the sticky factor of the holds. When you get a set of holds you can see the texture that comes from the air pockets from the mix. Air pockets are practically non existent on these holds and the texture is slick. When we set the new problem heel hooks were a breeze and comfortable. There is a problem in Niagra Glen that reminds me of the Cobblestone, it has a perfect heel hook, very comfortable (heel you can even do it in bare feet) and the Cobbles are the same in that your heel just falls into the right place.
Do you like climbing outside? Do you like comfortable holds that you could climb on for hours? Is your answer yes to any of these questions? Then chalk up and get a set of these holds.
EVE
Luv 'em! The color is bright and fun, the texture is simply amazing... it doesn't leave you with the softest skin but it's not painful. You can feel every little rock-like crevice and bump, and its sticky icky icky!!!! :D They come in a nice variety of size too, which means you don't destroy the same muscle or tendon for a whole route. The part that sucks is that I don't have much to say about them except for: try them.....now!!! Lol!
JACKY
Cobbles XL = BIG & SLICK.
It’s nearing the end of winter, and I can’t wait to touch real rock... I've been waiting a long time for a near real rock feeling! They're shaped like a real rock, and feel like a big greasy rock that you can’t trust because it’s hot outside the rock itself is sweating. The holds are big and you can’t use your whole hand on them, which lowers your grip even more. Like that wasn’t enough, Clim-It made them slick! Yeah… there’s some grip, but the surface is mostly smooth, and that’s what reminded me of that good feeling of a huge, hot and sweaty rock. Mixed with the set of standard cobbles, we set-up a nice problem, which was just my style. Old school, heel hook, little over hang and a dynamic final move ...really fun! The standard set is good too. The effect is the same, reproducing the feeling of moist rock. We had a nice presentation and I had a good time with these holds. Since I’m missing some minerals on my fingers, here’s what I think in two lines:
- IN: Holds that remind me of real rock
- OUT: Holds reminding me of the gym!
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