Climbing wall job

[thecolm]

I'd be up for getting into the wall early next year (maybe just before the start of term), having purchased certain elusive bolts (from any run of the mill hardware store), stripping and re-routing certain walls and also puttin particular holds where they would be better suited. A team of 5 of 6 could get a massive amount done in a day.
The routes board could also be re done/replaced by a white board perhaps and the V grading system used as its much more straighforward for beginners.
One of the walls in Wales used numbers at the bottom of sections of the walls as a reference to where the start of the routes was and this would also be somethin well worth copying.
i.e. putting 4 and 5 on the bottom left and right of the blue wall and 2 and 3 on the bottom left and right of the red wall etc.
Also, I know some T-nuts have fallen out the back and I'm also pretty sure theres a bag o em lying around somewhere so we could knock in a few.
And if someones feeling overly keen we have bolts if you'd like to attack the flat wall with a drill.

So... is access prior to start of term possible and whos up for it?

Colm out

[Ginge]

It's gotta be discussed formally (probably this week) but there are plans of having the wall open for the summer. So there should be no problem getting in their early. Even if it isn't open for the summer I don't think there would be any problems getting in early.

The bolts were not an issue with us, but the people that they were ordered from, Davis was actually near cancelling them because they were taking too long and as far as I know they were specialised. Ah well.

I'm up for getting rid of the blackboard alright. Whiteboard could perhaps be something we could budget for in the first ever Wall Section this year haha. (we might even be able to salvage one from somewhere)

[Darragh K]

Hey Colm,

As you have been away on co-op you probably arent aware of the work that has been done with the wall this semester. The "wall team", comprising of Davis, Gary and Mitch have done a lot of work in the wall setting new routes of varying difficulty in all sections of the wall.

I do agree that we need to re-do/replace the wall grading system. The route labelling you mention is also done in the Ice Factor in Scotland and works very well and could easily be done at our wall. It would help beginners too and it would stop me as a supervisor being plagued with people wondering how difficult a route is or where is the easiest route, when quite honestly I wouldnt have a clue.

We are hoping to have a section of our budget purely for wall development next year. This will allow us to develop the wall more, get pyramids, campus board etc made. If this does go ahead, the wall will more than likely be closed for a week to facilitate these works, and just get it all done in one go.

If we can get the work done before the start of term, all the better.

[cillian]

did someone mention salvaging.... ;D i will keep an eye out...

[thecolm]

I'm aware of the wall team alright :-)
but I've also heard some of the guys wanting a few harder routes and theres still a few problems with the location of certain grips that isnt really considered but has a huge inpact on how much use is gotten out of certain parts of the wall.
Either way it's alway good to do a big job every once in a while.
Anyway as long as we can get in den its all gravey and we'll rape the wall da weekend b4 start o term
White board would be great cillian so do wat ya can do hehe.

[thecolm]

O, would the club be up for keeping public chalk bags filled if we hung a few around the place (for beginners). I'v got a group one and 2 older ones I'd have no problem donating. They could hung off the walls and topped up every evening by the supervisor.
Just a thought :-)

[woodsy]

If anyone can get that for nothing its Cillian our resident hunter. We could have another look at some of the things lads brought up last year. DCU have quite a cool campus board which if needs be i could get further detail on where they got it or even just the size of the struts. Come the end of this term we can strip some routes and use them in the best location you see them in Colm.
Having wall development in the budget is great and can allow for some big changes.

Is better ventilation an option?

[thecolm]

Harr knows all ya need to know about da campus boards (hes probably still carrying around those plans in his pocket )

[Ginge]

Nope, I've got those plans and they shall be entered with the budget this year, or at least a copy of them haha.

[Superboy]

Better ventilation vs banning loose chalk especially if the wall's as busy next semester. All that chalk dust can't be good for you.

[harr]

Nope, I've got those plans

I do have a copy in my brain somewhere.

Two small extractors inserted into the windows at either end of the room would make a big difference.

Loose chalk in a wall is terrible, great outdoors when you need chalk fast but bad indoors when its not that important to chalk up quickly. If you do decide to provide a few communal chalk bags or boulder buckets then fill em with chalk balls.

A bunch of Small laminated rout cards with ROUTE name(given by setter), SETTER name, GRADE, DATE set printed on them would be useful. The details are then filled in using a white board marker.the card is placed at the bottom of the route behind the first grip. The route name and grade are written up on the black board or white board to make it easy for people to find.

[Mitch]

True that the three of us have been resetting walls, but I'd still like to see Colm and maybe a few of the more advanced climbers getting in there to set even a few more difficult/interesting climbs, and there are definitely a few routes that can be done away with and done again.

Definitely agree that we need to sort out the route-board. It hasn't changed since I left last year and half the routes written there weren't even on the wall before we reset the place. Now is the time to do it while the wall has been stripped and organized somewhat. There are still a number of routes that are just fading into the background because they aren't obvious unless you go looking for them.

Another thing I mentioned to Davis already, but don't know if it was mentioned to the committee is the possibility of re-doings the flat wall. To be honest it's manky and falling apart. It might be pushing it a bit, but I think it'd be nice to layer over it with a fresh plywood wall like the 5degree wall last year. The summer is the perfect time to get something like this done and would also allow time to work on these pyramids and such that have been mentioned. Maybe that's overkill to something major needs to be done with it.

[Darragh K]

Apr 20, 2010 9:28:02 GMT Ginge said:

Nope, I've got those plans and they shall be entered with the budget this year, or at least a copy of them haha.

*Cough* ahem, I actually have them.

They are very impressive drawings Harr, well done!

I think the plan should be, pull down that route board and use the laminated cards giving the name of the route etc instead. Then build John's Campus board as per his plan/specification.

But guys its easy talk about this but realistically we need quotes from people who are able to do this and who can give us a rough idea of the cost of materials.

[woodsy]

we had similar great plans last year and whike some people were great and got through alot of it some o the ideads fell by the wayside.. in terms of the wall can we set a weekend that suits people and get cracking on some of these savage ideas?

[darraghc]

Mitch, I thought that was my idea!?

How about some quality beginner routes? Myself and Mitch were talking about this a few weeks ago.

I was trying the yellow route and blue route at the 30 degree wall tuesday.....supposedly 2 of the easier routes in the wall....I cant imagine many beginner getting any of these even after a semester of climbing......I believe I've only seen 2 beginners getting these routes this year.

Having beginners simply climb any colour grip to the top is ok for starting but if we have easy routes which teach a beginner a new techniques, for example: one route could show how to use slopers, another could teach rocking over, another the opposite rule, another foot technique...as far as I can see, the 'beginner routes' we currently have contain the same moves just on different holds....

Also, I recall climbing 'the easiest' lead wall route a few weeks ago, hoping to do stamina training on it, only to find myself putting my foot on a high hand-hold and rocking over on it.....hardly a beginner route......If the idea is that beginners should use any holds then move on to single-coloured routes then there is a massive skill gap between them. And just remember, an easy route doesn't have to mean a ladder!