French Spider-Man Climbs 750ft Building

It’s always impressive when Spider-Man scales tall buildings with the use of his powers, but it’s even more impressive when someone does it without them.

That’s the case with Alain Robert, a 56-year-old Frenchman who decided to scale and climb the Heron Tower in London. Thing is, he didn’t use any safety gear, ropes, or other equipment to do it, scaling the building with only his bare hands. His skills have earned him the nickname of the French Spider-Man, and he lived up to it by eventually getting to the top of the building in 50 minutes.

Robert was the object of plenty of videos and photos on social media as he made his way up the tower, and when asked about the difficulty after the fact he told Sky it was a “medium” climb, saying it wasn’t “easy” but also wasn’t “ridiculous”.

“I’m not crazy,” Robert said. “What I’m doing may seem crazy but I’m not that crazy. If you are shaving, or if you are cooking, you can also think about many other things. But when you are climbing, as I’m not using any safety devices, when life is at stake, I guarantee that you are focused.”

While Robert doesn’t use any other equipment in his climbs, he does use chalk to improve the friction between his skin and the building, and also wears wafer-thin gloves and tapes his fingers. That’s a far cry from a safety harness, but at least it is something right?

After scaling the building Robert was arrested by police, and they weren’t so thrilled with the stunt. Commander Karen Baxter of the London Police said “The incident has had a considerable impact on police, other emergency services and the local community. Our officers, the London Fire Brigade and the London Ambulance Service all attended this incident, taking them away from genuine emergencies.”

Roberts may want to wait a bit before taking on another building in London, but we doubt this will be his last climb.

Roberts has scaled a number of impressive buildings but does consider his crown achievement the Burj Khalifa, a 2719 foot mountain.

As for Spider-Man, fans will next see him scaling buildings in Marvel Studios and Sony’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, which will give the web-slinger a new suit and most likely some new tech to web and crawl through the city in style!

Spider-Man: Far From Home hits theaters on July 5th, 2019.