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Friday Funnies 21-Feb-2014 At 2:39:57 PM sbm

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Saw this post from the parody Reddit forum ClimbingCircleJerk:

"When you're new to climbing, sometimes you get a little overexcited about meeting your climbing heroes. Once or twice, new climbers at my gym have, well, made a bit of a mess when Chris "The God" Sharma or Alex "Please Put Your Huge Biceps Around Me" Puccio drop by on their circuit. So, this is a story I sometimes tell the gumbies about the time I met one of my climbing heroes.

So, I'll preface this story by letting you know that I'm a serious business climber. Like, I climb 5.17d in my sleep. I'm that serious. Well, so about seven years ago I was involved in developing a new crag (you've probably never heard of it). Well, there was this one really cool-looking line that started in a cave, then rose up across a roof, and then right up a beautiful series of pockets. Pure climbing heaven.

Well, we bolted the line and got to working on it. We know it would be a hard one from the moment we first saw it, but damn, we didn't realize how hard it actually was. Day after day we worked it, but we made no progress.

Well, one morning, we arrive only to see this guy halfway up the line, maybe 15 meters up. He couldn't have given it much practice that morning, because it's just barely light out, and the sun wasn't even up. As we got closer, we could see that he was freesoloing it. Just running right up it.

Well, we watched him, totally amazed, as he went from two-finger pocket to pinch to 1 finger gaston, and finally tapped the anchor. Then he did the most amazing thing....he let go with his left hand, tapped something on his belt, and just....let go. Before we knew it, he had dropped all 30 meters to the ground and stood before us. He was covered in black spandex, and was wearing a black balaclava with what seemed almost to be ears. He just glared at us and, in a gravelly voice, said, "5.12d." My jaw just dropped. I was sure it was going to go at 5.14c or higher. This guy not only sent my project, but he downgraded it before I even got a chance to rate it. Total bullshit. I opened my mouth to ask him who he thought he was, but before I could finish my sentence, he growled, "I'm Batman." And then he clocked me one upside the head and ran off.

So, to this day, I tell this story to gumbies so they'll know that, no matter how cool they think it is to spot Chris Sharma at their gym, they'll know I'm cooler, because Batman sent my proj."