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Meet Allen Roberts, a Vancouver based builderer, scholar, rock-climbing hardman, and alpinist who deserves an interview based on those merits alone. However, being that his name is the English equivalent of buildering superstar Alain Robert, I couldn’t help but ask Allen a few questions about this odd similarity.

So Allen Roberts eh?

Yeah I like to think of myself as the “thinking man’s Alain”.

Allen vs. Alain in a walk-off [Zoolander style]?

Oh I’d win for sure. Have you seen that guy? Oh wait…I guess it depends on whether it’s European fashion, or North American fashion. If it takes place at the FCUK headquarters then I’m screwed, but if it takes place at Mark’s Work Wearhouse, then I’d win for sure.

Alain and yourself are in a pick-up bar together. Who’s the wingman and who is the player?

Oh Alain is the player for sure. Unless it’s a British bar, then he’s the wingman.

Since Alain Robert pretty much owns the Spiderman persona, which superhero do you personify?

Hmmm…superhero? I don’t think I personify any superhero. But since we are talking about superheroes, here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately… the whole Parkour community has yet to embrace DareDevil as their indelible mascot. I mean, it’s completely obvious…here’s a guy who receives his power solely off his perception of his spatial environment. He doesn’t feel fear because: A) he’s a badass acrobat, but also because B) he doesn’t sense the gigantic drop beneath him. He can’t see things to be afraid of, so that empowers him to be the “the man without fear”.

So fear is the only thing holding us back from performing such DareDevil-esque feats?

Yes, but its fear of so many different things. You’ve got fear of physical pain, either of getting hurt or the pain of training, you’ve got the emotional fear of failure, social fears, psychological fears, and so on and so forth. Instead of one monstrous fear, it’s actually a whole bunch of little fears that you can overcome. There’s actually a great book out there called “The Rock Warrior’s Way: Mental Training for Climbers” by Arno Ilgner, which talks all about this.

Buildering has been really good for me in this regard…especially the social fear of climbing. When you’ve been rock-climbing for awhile you get used to obeying these certain modes of how you should climb, or how you should think about climbing. Whereas with buildering, you are all of a sudden thrown into this arena where nobody cares at all about what you are doing, or how you are doing it. So now you are completely free to develop your own set of rules, and to do it however you feel. Oh…unless cops yell at you.

Have you ever been arrested?

Yeah, once in Chamonix. I was living down there with some climbing friends: Adam and Alex. After many drinks, we all decided to go out and do some buildering. We ended up climbing this enormous boom crane, but unfortunately some firemen saw us. They were very friendly firemen, but they insisted on detaining us while they called the police. The police weren’t nearly as happy to have been woken up at 3am, so they yelled at us for awhile, threw us into their van, drove a good 20 minutes out of town and made us walk back in the cold. We didn’t get back until around 5am, all sober and disappointed – but pleased to not have been beaten as we had heard rumours that the french police like to use their batons on American tourists.

Do you regularly builder under the influence?

No, usually I builder alone, or with one other like minded individual. But occasionally I’ll head out in a large drunken group which makes for more spotters. You can’t have too many spotters, as the more drunk your spotters are, the more you need.

Actually, buildering has made me change my drinking habits from being a marathon drinker to a binge drinker. I pretty much have to drink enough to hit the floor, or else I’ll get the urge to go out buildering.
It also helps to have a sober girlfriend who has either a very strong emotional and psychological influence on you, or is just a very strong woman physically.

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