The latest release from Sheffield-based Vertebrate Publishing is
'Rock Athlete', the
story of
climbing
legend Ron Fawcett who dominated the British climbing
scene in the 1970s and 80s.
Co-written with top outdoors journalist Ed Douglas, the book is the
story of how Fawcett became one of the world's first professional rock
climbers and with the help of a committed training regime - innovative
at the time - transformed the climbing scene with a string of difficult
new routes, that are still considered hard today.
One of his most remarkable achievements was to solo 100 E-graded routes
in a day, running between them
Fawcett had a high profile, appearing in several TV programmes
including Rock Athlete by Sid Perou and Dean Man's Tales by Leo
Dickinson and had numerous sponsorship deals. Then, in the
late 80s, Fawcett faded from the climbing scene apparently finding the
pressure of being constantly in the limelight too much to bear.
A quick dip into the book suggests that it's as readable as you'd
expect, full review to follow once we've read it properly. It's a
hardback with a selection of colour images. Price is
£20 from bookshops or direct from
www.v-outdoor.co.uk.
