UKC

Anyone used one of these?
Any good?

Trying to avoid chalk if possible!

Ade

In reply to soveda:
Bump, in view of the debate going on in another forum.

In reply to soveda:

I've used one in the past, but sadly lost it when someone nicked my chalk bag. It was very good at drying sweat - almost too good in fact, in that it really seemed to take a lot of moisture from the skin, so my hands stayed dry for quite some hours after I stopped using it during a session. It would probably be good to use some kind of moisturiser after climbing.

I was always a bit put off because I didn't know what the active ingredients were.

In reply to soveda:

um... what is an eco ball & how would it replace the need for chalk?

Only eco-ball I know of is an environmentally-friendly substitute for washing detergent, but that doesn't really fit in this context.
http://www.ecozone.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=314

In reply to haze01:
http://www.ellis-brigham.com/cgi-bin/psProdDet.cgi/161162||@cRock===Climbin...

Dries the hands without a residue supposedly.

Ade

In reply to soveda:

Well it sounds like a good idea, but i'm not sure how it would work.
If it works like chalk by putting some coating on your hands then i can't see how it wouldn't rub off onto the rock - maybe only in small quantities, but there would still be build up eventually.

>Dries the hands without a residue supposedly.

like a tea towel?

In reply to soveda:

Was interested in this so i did a big of googling... There's lots of sites selling it with the rather promising sounding sales pitch: "Alternative to chalk, leaves no trace on rock, highly absorbent"

Only actual product reviews i could find were:

"I found it to be excellent indoors but not really suited to limestone."

"Some climbing gyms who have been enforcing use of ecoball long term now observe a gel forming on the holds, which hardens and is a pain to remove. It was inferred this might also happen on real rock."

Might try it out myself when i next replace my chalk ball, see what its like. (Will post a product review somewhere if i do!)

In reply to haze01:

I'm not sure how it works, but it does work. It doesn't appear to put a coating on your hands - seems to suck all the moisture out of them instead.

In reply to soveda: For what it's worth, the standard Metolius chalk includes a portion of the active ingredient too, if I remember rightly.

In reply to haze01:

Do you have a verdict on THOSE types of eco-balls?

I used em (till one burst apart). Felt that it made stuff cleaner, but wasn't sure if it was just me and placebo effect.

In reply to David Martin:
I hadn't heard of them until recently when I visited the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales. I haven't had a chance to try them out yet but i've read some good reviews so i'll probably buy some when my washing powder runs out :0)

hmmmm, it occurs to me that if the ecoball does genuinely remove dirt & grime without the aid of detergent then its perhaps the perfect thing for washing a climbing rope?

In reply to haze01:
They do seem pretty good.

Clothes definately come out softer as they "de-harden" the water (aparently this is all the rage in Japan, having different taps dispensing soft and hard water for different tasks). There are no soap suds and no perfumed smell on the clothes, which I thought was good, but also gives the impression they aren't clean. I nreality any smell just seems to be removed completely and filth and grot also seem to dissapear.

In my mind they work a treat, and are super-cheap, environmental, suposedly better for clothes, wearer and machine alike....

...just a little concerned it's all an illusion though.

In reply to David Martin:
I used them for about 6 months and thought they were great. I still used normal washing powder for really dirty stuff but for general washing I couldn't fault them.

In reply to Bill Ford-Smith:

Think you're on about Cabisol. Metolius cut their chalk with this which is a really lightweight filler/drying agent. Put it in a nice looking bag charge you a shed load.

Thing about chalk balls indoors is, to get the chalk out of them you have to tap/squeeze them, to get it to go through the membrane that holds it in. Which makes nice airborn particals, the stuff they're trying to cut down on.

Loose chalk, ie powered stuff which seems to be the fashion these days, is a nightmare too, when folk fall onto bouldering crashmats, leaving a big spill...

Personally prefer a block of chalk that i can just touch in my chalk bag. Just plain simple magnesium carbonate, but it's been banned in most centres theses days, but chalk balls are worse for airborn fine dust that you can't see...

Aw well....

In reply to zoobizooretta:

I get the most awesome flappers if I use Metolius Superchalk.

In reply to Bill Ford-Smith:

Yup. I emailed Metolius to aks what their ecoballs contain, and I got this reply:

"Our eco-balls contain the drying agent that we also mix into all of our chalk. It's basically Silica Dioxide, also called Fumed Silica."

In reply to tony:
So is it the same stuff as in those silica gell bags you get in electrical equipment packaging?

Ade