We have recently taken on a new brand for our wool base layer needs. Woolpower have been around a long old time but have specialised in supplying the Swedish army for much of that. Their products are designed with durability and sustainability in mind and the little personal touches, such as the name of the seamstress who finished your garment, are really great to see. A truly wholesome brand to get behind and Jack has been sweating his bits off in one this year to see what all the fuss is about.

Injuries are part and parcel of living a sporty lifestyle. Being multi-disciplined, however, I do think climbers have it worse than many of others. The sport is so 'pull' intensive and calls on the push muscles in any antagnostic muscle pair very rarely. This leads to imbalances and injuries as one half of the group is worked to breaking point and the opposite barely touched.

There is a lot of conflicting information out there but it seems to be universally accepted that working the antagnostic muscle in any pairing is no bad thing. Jack has been doing just that with his trusty Powerfingers for many moons and is here to give you the low down.

Jack bought himself a day-to-day sack.. not to be confused with a day sack! Snap have always brought Parisian style to to their products but there cannot be that much to say about a casual rucksack can there? Well.. Jack found a way.

Some neat features in a simplistic modern design.

The Edelrid Ohm is a device for helping level the playing field between a heavy climber and their light belayer. Bertie is one such heavy climber and his better half is a light belayer! They jumped at the chance to test the Ohm and below Bertie has outlined his unique thoughts on this unique device.

There is nothing else on the market quite like the Ohm, unless you want to drag sand bags down to your favourite crags. So if you are considerably heavier (or lighter) than your  favourite climbing partner it is probably worth a quick read.

ClimbOn Creme is a greasy miracle cream for fixing bigger wounds and super sore skin.

I once had a reasonable case of rope burn on one armpit, not a pleasant place for scabby broken skin! By applying the creamier version of ClimbOn daily the wound maintained a soft flexible outer, speeding up a more comfortable recovery. On another occasion I managed to chop a shallow part of the skin on my thumb off whilst cutting kindling; ClimbOn and tape had it grow back in a fortnight. It was only skin but all the way into the real fleshy stuff under the white layer.

A top tip, keep surface wounds like this moist, clean and covered. The old saying to ‘let it breathe’ doesn’t work, it just allows a scab to form, slowing circulation and encouraging scar tissue. The cream can separate if you don’t use it for some time, so if this does happen I just squish the bottle around a bunch to mix it up.

- Bertie

Shorts for all and everything short related! I should really get another pair of Ocun Mania shorts - they get a right hammering in the summer. Several months of all wearing and no cleaning, they just keep on going and make no complaint! The fabric seems to clean itself especially when you jump in a lake with them on…

After 2 years all the stitching is intact, the elastic hasn’t failed me and the pockets don’t have holes in so durability gets a 10 out of 10. Apart from not being overly fashionable in design I really can’t fault the shorts. There is also a full length version for the shin-shy or the other 360 days of the year shorts are unsuitable in the UK.

- Bertie

If you’ve climbed on a gusty day you may have lost some chalk to the Lord of Gwynt*, I certainly have! No more, the Moon Trad chalk bags can be closed with one hand and just as easily opened again.

A simple, stretchy, sprung flap snaps over the aperture to seal the bag so when it’s strapped to your back you can either pull it closed or open it again, all very easily. I also found once using this chalk bag I didn’t bother with my bouldering bucket anymore. It's so easy to open and close I just chalk up, snap the flap and chuck it to the mat.

The brim is stiff and the aperture wide for the largest of mitts, they come with a belt and in a bunch of different colours. You can only go so wrong with chalk bag design but these are one of the better ones!

- Bertie

*Note from the editor: Gwynt is Welsh for wind.. Lord of Gwynt? Yeah, I don’t know either.

He may not crank like Megos but he treats his feet to the same tools of the trade. Bertie has been scaling in a pair of Tenaya Iatis for the last 12 months and wants to tell the world what he thinks. With minimal editing it is now coherent and fit for public consumption.

If you are after a soft, technical toe down then the entire Tenaya range is worth a look!

Our best-selling approach shoe range by no small margin. The La Sportiva TX approach shoe range goes from ultra-lightweight and packable (TX2) through to fully waterproof, beefy trekkers (TX5).

There is justification for any or all of them on your shoe rack but Bertie is here to promote the TX4 Mid GTX in his own special way.

Gather round and discover why Bertie is adamant he needs low TX4 GTX too!