Rockclimbing!!

At present, I need to go to Milton Keynes or to St. Albans for climbing. They haven't put up any indoor climbing walls around my area. I think they're missing a trick.

Looking forwards to my first ever outdoor climb this late May though.
 
I'm contemplating opening a climbing wall. The opportunity for profit is imense especially these days witb the boom in fitness.. costs nothing really, empty building and a few holds and someone trained in first aid to man the place
 
Finally got to scratch up my rack.:D

Some nice ticks last week including my first ever HVS and some Top 50 VS routes at Froggatt, Stanage High Neb and Roaches.

Valkyrie VS 4c

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I'm contemplating opening a climbing wall. The opportunity for profit is imense especially these days witb the boom in fitness.. costs nothing really, empty building and a few holds and someone trained in first aid to man the place

Decent route setters are expensive!
 
Trying to keep the thread alive with more bragging.:)

I sent my first ever outdoor 6c+ routes last week in Antalya, Turkey.:D

On-sighted 'Mission to Mars', an easy first section before launching to Mars via overhanging jugs.

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It took 5 attempts to send 'In Ordan' cleanly. A stiff 6c+ with a technical first section, bouldery crux and steep, juggy tufas to finish.

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Cheers, next stop 7a? :D

That was the first time I've tried red-pointing and it was definitely satisfying to finally get the route clean.

Normally, I try a route and either bail if it's too hard or dog to the top clip by clip and never come back to it. So it was rewarding this time do a route that felt hard but doable after several tries working the moves and rehearsing the perfect sequence over and over in my head.
 
I have had a go at top roped climbing and bouldering.

I've found myself gravitating toward bouldering more over the last year and a bit though just out of convenience (there's quite a few indoor boulder gyms and a lot of good sandstone near me). I recently managed my first outdoor 6B at the High Rocks in Tunbridge Wells a friend got this photo as I set off:

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I'm now being hounded by another friend to give lead climbing a go.
 
I definitely recommend doing some sport and trad climbing. It will help you be a more rounded climber than a pure boulderer IMO.

Yeah I can see the advantage to getting some sport climbing in, especially with endurance. I do however need to get over a bit of a fear, the only trouble is I can't decide if it's a fear of heights or fear of falling. Either way it often results in very sweaty hands and over gripping over a certain point.
 
i like bouldering for its convenience, but trad gets so much more satisfaction.. i can do a 4c trad route and feel satisfied yet i aim for high 6's bouldering.. sometimes it gets frustrating blasting the same problem too over and over.. id rather enjoy the climb then spend hours on a boulder just to tick it off the list

i get scared out of my mind leading, especially when i go too bold.. best thing to do is go small and easy, you'll still feel satisfied if its high enough and scares you enough to still do some committing moves high up

i've been stuck before 20 metres up a pumpy route. arms getting tired mind started freaking out, disco leg kicked in and i almost had a panic attack. i managed to wedge a foot into a crack to relieve one hand somewhat so i could alternate and shake some pump out of my hands.. never felt so scared in my life my mind was racing hard and it took me about 10 minutes to calm myself dowen enough to focus on the route and finish it, and that was fear of falling.. even though when i assess i had enough gear in to never deck out, ive just never fell outside and don't particularly want to either. i haven't done sport in ages but i used to do clip drop leading sport thinking that would take the edge off my fear of falling but it never did
 
Well I finally got out and did some top roping at the local sandstone (Bowles Rock. The route in the picture is Pig's Nose 5a) so I've broken my 1.5 year bouldering only streak.

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I'm pretty sure I've narrowed down the fear to a fear of falling rather than a fear of heights too.
 
Rather than creating a new thread, I thought I would keep this one going as it has not been posted in, in a while.

So I went and got myself a fingerboard at the weekend and quite possibly stupidly installed it on my dot and dab drywall.

First hole made to see how thick the plaster board is and how much room I had to play with before hitting the steel.

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Here we have the fingerboard with the Rawplug spring toggles ready to be installed in to the wall, I used these M5 x 80mm spring toggles from ScrewFix.

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Lining all of the spring toggles up to the holes I made in the wall was a bit tricky, but I got there in the end.

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The bottom spring toggles did not fasten at first and would just 'spin' behind the plasterboard, with a little bit of ingenuity and the help from a rare-earth magnet I managed to get all six spring toggles fastened tight against the back of the plasterboard.

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So far so good, seems to be holding! I'm just as shocked haha


Has anyone else got a fingerboard at home for training etc and how do you find it?
 
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