Tom Bunn frees Super Indirect to give Talking Heads - F7b

Tom Bunn has recently added a new sport route to Cheesewring Quarry's Central Bay. Talking Heads, F7b, is essentially a free version of the old aid climb Super Indirect, A2. First climbed over a couple of days in 1970 by Steve Chadwick, with Len Benstead and Brian Wright, Super Indirect was one of the last remaining aid climbs from this period. Although the first section had been freed in 1989 by Ken Palmer (as part of his climb Mauritius) its main aid pitch, a traverse of the Central Bay, had not been climbed free. It is this pitch which forms the bulk of Tom Bunn's impressive new route.

Spectral Radius, Black Panther and Black Sabbath are now the only '70s aid routes in the quarry that remain to be freed completely, and of these the latter two have been freed but for very short sections of climbing.

Tom made his ascent of Talking Heads just a month after he'd added another new climb to Cheesewring's walls; Destruction in a Granite Setting is a Font.7B-graded micro-route on the Southern Outcrop.

The local climbers are continuing with the re-equipping of Cheesewring's sport routes and new stainless steel bolts have now been placed on Real Live Wire, F7b (7 bolts) and Wring the Changes, F7b+ (5 bolts). A new stainless steel bolt with mailon has also been added to the previously dodgy lower-off atop Psychokiller. Concerns had been raised about the state of this lower-off in the past as a single stainless staple, which accompanied a very dubious old ring peg, seemed to be the only reliable gear.

Full descriptions of these two new routes can be found on the Cheesewring Quarry section of the New Routes page on the Cheesewring Climbing website.