Climbing gym design

Troy Tadlock wrote: -High Ball bouldering over a foam pit. Deep Foam Soloing?

-ARCing area with auto belay and reservations

-Slack line over foam pit

-Set a route that mimics an area classic project and alternate.

-The guitar guy from mad max suspended from the ceiling.

All of these...especially the last one.

More seriously, I would honestly switch gyms and pay more for the ability to reserve the 'arc wall' for 30minutes if it had say a series of grades. That is brilliant.

Other observation I have had...

A lot of folks have a 40m gym rope. Make sure your lead routes aren't rope stretchers. I know of at least one gym that had to lower the anchors on their 60 foot walls because their setters kept setting wandery routes that caused 40m rope problems.

As an addendum, with large continuous features you also get the freedom of putting on different volumes that don't have to be very big, but can significantly alter the angle of a climb

​Just do this. ​​​

Work with a local school teacher and run an after school program.  This will require a snack and a homework period followed by climbing.
These kids can be dropped off by the school bus and must be picked up by 6pm.  Late parents are charged $10 a minute when late.
The key is these kids are charged hourly .  Like $10 an hour.  I know a gym that had 75 kids every day for 4 hours.

Walltopia.

I think gyms waste space.  It may be a cost issue but I always look at floor space and wonder why isnt there a wall here right in the center of the room.

John Wilder wrote:

Modern gym design trends toward avoiding features that create the same exact routes over and over again. This is not to say there should be no corners or aretes, but that they should be minimized to allow the setters freedom to create all different styles of routes anywhere in the gym.

Not getting what's "stale" about climbing a variety of arete routes at different difficulties and steepnesses, sometimes positive holds, sometimes slopers -- and lots of other variations -- as the TGV setters well know how to do.
Is this "stale" because fun steep arete routes are rarely seen outdoors?
. . . (Anyway if the setter doesn't want to create an arete route, just use the walls adjoining on each side -- as the TGV setters also well know how to do).

I had a great time this morning at one of the newer TGV gyms and they had two sustained steeply overhanging 5.8 routes (and two 5.9s) -- which are rarely seen outdoors.

What stuck me was that the percentage of the gym with inside and outside corner features at a variety of sharpness or wideness seems to have _increased_ since they built the first two TGV gyms.

That's the "lesson learned" from perhaps the fastest growing climbing-gym brand in the world.

Ken

P.S. I'm suspecting that one thing blocking enthusiasm and support for working for legal access to outdoor rock around TGV's region is that the indoor terrain and route-setting has gotten so sophisticated and fun that access to more outdoor rock seems less critical -- and potential new crags need to be very convenient as well as have interesting rock.

John Wilder, it's interesting for me to reflect about what you're saying about less-featured walls. My home gym is Sender LAX. Tons of big open walls. Lots of overhang. Near me is Cliffs of Id. They've got really interesting (to me) built in features. I really have enjoyed the hell out of climbing there couple times I've been. But I can see how the same chimney, even reset, might get stale once I've done it 15 times. My instinct is that gyms like Sender LAX need more aretes and fun cracks and angled features. But you very well may be right.

I love this feature from Planet Granite in SF. But once the novelty of the step-across is gone it's probably just an expensive gimmick.

A couple ideas I haven't seen mentioned yet:

1. A whiteboard/message board for finding belay partners.  Ideally both - whiteboard for finding day-of partners, message board for leaving phone numbers, etc.
2. Long hours - I know it's a business and this is expensive, but it's really helpful.  
3. One thing a local gym does that is nice (and addresses some of the "no kids" issues") is  "Members Only" hours.  It's in off-peak times that may have been members only regardless, but it's nice for getting a little space. 
4. Big lockers - I like to ride my bike to the gym from the office, but this means I've got to stuff all my work stuff plus bike stuff (pannier, helmet, etc) into a gym locker.  I've never encountered a gym that didn't have enough lockers, so I think you're safe going a bit larger and a bit fewer on the lockers. 

Kev V wrote: I'm looking at designing a facility, have a solid general concept of layout, have seen my share of climbing gyms, but would like to crowd-source any thoughts, ideas, observed flaws, annoyances, etc you've encountered during your interactions with the world of plastic. Thinking more about the physical space than the operations within, however I value input of any sort if you are inclined to respond.

Gym to include TR, lead, boulder, fitness - standard amenity line-up.

Oh, and I promise to take all comments as gospel
Thx!

I have built and helped in the building of climbing facilities and walls.

How much space do you have? and how much of it is going to be support facilities and gym space?

The problem with featured gym cracks (constrictions, etc) is you eventually get them wired and climb them like face climbs, which kind of defeats the purpose of training on cracks. I realize only a handful of climbing areas have laser cut splitters, but from a pure training standpoint parallel sided cracks are far better IMO. You can’t cheat them or climb around moves that involve hard sizes – they force you to actually be proficient in whatever size.

I’m gonna second the comments for a kilter/tension/moon board. They’re really fun, and a great way to train. Recent gym setting has drifted towards the comp style setting, which doesn’t prepare you well for outdoor projects. Which is not to say that style isn’t fun—I love it. But training boards are the best, most fun way to push outdoor grade when you don’t have time to make it outdoors.

One more - have an area of "unrated" routes - and make it known they are intentionally unrated.  The idea is to have people try a route they might not normally try, and surprise themselves.  Perhaps set it, leave it unrated for a month, then reveal the rating.  

A wide array of angles for walls in the bouldering area. no need for 5.3 slab, but it helps to train footwork and trusting garbage small feet on low angle. otherwise, I agree with the first page, overhang the lead walls, throw some stepped roofs in there, and maybe have a vert with autobelay for people looking to work enduro crimping.

(See PG Portland, amazing terrain for everyone and every style)

Chuck Becker wrote: The problem with featured gym cracks (constrictions, etc) is you eventually get them wired and climb them like face climbs, which kind of defeats the purpose of training on cracks. I realize only a handful of climbing areas have laser cut splitters, but from a pure training standpoint parallel sided cracks are far better IMO. You can’t cheat them or climb around moves that involve hard sizes – they force you to actually be proficient in whatever size.

It seems to me that with all the technology available gyms should have the ability to switch up crack features just like they do face holds. Given all the other products Walltopia manufactures it seems trivial to design a crack system that can be adjusted and varied. My sense is that there's just not an enormous demand currently existing for gym cracks. My huge gym has two hand cracks, an offwidth and two finger cracks. That's it. And they're often not being used at all. But people are always really interested when they see someone with good crack technique climbing them. 

CRACKS. I don't know why this isn't more common as they're such a big part of climbing. It would be excellent if at a minimum there were:
-an easy hand crack for people to learn on
-a granite-like variable fingers to fists crack (depending on wall material may not be viable, but variability of some sort would be good)
-a splitter through a big overhang
-an offwidth

And why not funky bouldering cracks too?

Señor Arroz wrote:

It seems to me that with all the technology available gyms should have the ability to switch up crack features just like they do face holds. Given all the other products Walltopia manufactures it seems trivial to design a crack system that can be adjusted and varied. My sense is that there's just not an enormous demand currently existing for gym cracks. My huge gym has two hand cracks, an offwidth and two finger cracks. That's it. And they're often not being used at all. But people are always really interested when they see someone with good crack technique climbing them. 

PG San Francisco has variable adjustable cracks. They are essentially made from one huge crack that has a pillar in the middle that they can tilt and shift left and right to adjust the size of the two cracks formed. it works pretty well and could probably be improved on a little for even more variation and size range.

Señor Arroz wrote:

It seems to me that with all the technology available gyms should have the ability to switch up crack features just like they do face holds. Given all the other products Walltopia manufactures it seems trivial to design a crack system that can be adjusted and varied. My sense is that there's just not an enormous demand currently existing for gym cracks. My huge gym has two hand cracks, an offwidth and two finger cracks. That's it. And they're often not being used at all. But people are always really interested when they see someone with good crack technique climbing them. 

Maybe something like a modular system where you plug in different types of cracks into that area of the wall. It would have the added benefit of being able to be cleaned...

Chuck Becker wrote:

Maybe something like a modular system where you plug in different types of cracks into that area of the wall. It would have the added benefit of being able to be cleaned...

That's exactly the thought I have. Like a big wide crack with bolt-in inserts that make it have different constrictions, textures, widths. Or why not just have bolt-on volumes that are big cracks that can go anywhere on the walls?

And you're right that it'd be nice to wash the blood off sometimes...

John Clark wrote:

PG San Francisco has variable adjustable cracks. They are essentially made from one huge crack that has a pillar in the middle that they can tilt and shift left and right to adjust the size of the two cracks formed. it works pretty well and could probably be improved on a little for even more variation and size range.

Yeah, I've climbed that. The PG cracks are nice as a visitor but I suspect that the regulars get used to the features really fast.