Is Brad Gobright the New Alex Honnold?
Is a question that American all-rounder and funnyman Cedar Wright asks in a recent article.
Wright is a good mutual friend of both and has produced films about Brad Gobright and Alex Honnold.
His most recent article is called “Brad Gobright Is Alex Honnold’s New Nemesis” and was written for OutsideOnline.com.
He begins the article with: “I opened up my Instagram a week ago and had to chuckle. At the top of my feed was Alex Honnold in all his selfie glory at the top of Epinephrine in Las Vegas, one of the best multipitch 5.9 climbs in the world. The caption read: ‘I just climbed Epinephrine in 39:40, which I think is a new speed record…all I care is that it beat Brad Gobright’s time.’
“Ignoring for a moment what could be interpreted as the slightly desperate and slightly petty tone of this Insta post—not to mention the mind-melting, life-risking record that Alex had just clocked on Epinephrine’s 2,240 vertical feet of technical climbing—let’s answer a few questions that will help shed light on this budding and unlikely climbing rivalry: Why does Alex Honnold care so much about beating a nobody named Brad Gobright? And more important, who the hell is Brad Gobright?”
Wright’s recent film about Gobright is called Safety Third and documents Gobright making bold moves sans rope high above the ground.
Last year, Gobright broke The Nose speed record with Jim Reynolds and beat Alex Honnold and Hans Florine’s record by four minutes with a time of 2:19:44.
Wright wrote, “Climbing has a ripe history of rivalries, but too often they turn out petty and mean-spirited—think: Royal Robbins and Warren Harding—which makes the competition between Brad and Honnold refreshing.”
Be sure to follow Gobright on Instagram below to help him catch up to Honnold, he’s only shy about 700,000 followers.
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