Kevin Lindlau is one of the rare birds in drytooling who excels at both comp *and* outdoor climbing. In January, Kevin completed the second ascent of “Aletheia”, rated D16 ✅, becoming only the second person in the world to climb the grade. (There’s some nuance here since other routes have been proposed at D16, but this is the first route that has been repeated and the grade corroborated). Anywho, on the comp side, Kevin was the first American to ever make World Cup Finals in Lead in 2019, and he has regularly made Finals since. 

In this episode, we talk about: 

• 🧊 How Kevin came to climbing after a gruesome accident that ended a promising bicycle racing career
• 🧊 Overcoming self-doubt along the way
• 🧊 The important role of mentorship in his development (shout out to Marcus Garcia)
• 🧊 How to train for high-end roof climbing and competitions in the same year
• 🧊 What most people get wrong about ARC training
• 🧊 The future of drytooling routes
• 🧊 And of course, latte art ☕️

Just a warning that Kevin gives a graphic description of his accident. If you’re squeamish, you might want to skip that part. If you’re a sadist, well, enjoy, I guess. 

Resources and links:

If you’d like to follow along with Kevin’s latest latte creation, his ice axe juggling or climbing, you can follow him on Instagram @lindlaukevin.

Other notes:

We are also planning a training episode with Kevin and a few others, so if you have any questions from the episode, send me a DM and we’ll include it in that conversation. 

...

📸 Cover photo by Kara Vogler (@mtnghoststudio)

Credits:

• Intro music by Hannah Noelle Enomoto (thanks, sis!).
• This episode was edited by Andrew Salomone of salomonesound.com.
• And of course, a big thanks to our sponsors, Aniiu  Gloves and Furnace Industries!

Become a member:

Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed the conversation and want to help us do many more episodes like this, please consider becoming a member.  

(For less than the price of a bougie beer per month!).

🗣️ Leave us a review!:

You can also help us out by subscribing to the podcast and leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice. Reviews are helpful for new listeners that come across the show, and a good rating means Spotify, Apple, and other platforms are more likely to recommend it to others.