grasshopper board thoughts

I have a Boulder Board 8 (8’ x 10’) adjustable wall from 15 to 40 degrees with the Grasshopper Ninja flow, engage, and power set with LED lights.  I am enjoying it as a tool to stay fit for the few times I get to go climbing outside.  It is also nice that you can climb very easy or very hard problems, warm up well on good holds, and train on hard holds (crimps, pinches, slopers, underclings).  I haven’t spent much time climbing other boards but to me the hold design is interesting enough, more so than Kilter to me, but again, haven’t climbed a lot on other boards.  I do find the grades to be all over the place on the app.  The consensus to me seems to be that the grades are harder than on the kilter board app. I would like to see more consistent setting from Grasshopper and or pros and more of a community of quality routes set for all the board sizes of Grasshopper.  Hoping they will get there, they are still a young system board company so hopefully with time.  All in all, I am happy with my set up, I use it often, and it is keeping me fit for climbing outside!  Also it is a good board for all levels of climbing, another plus.

Alexander Patterson wrote:

I have a Boulder Board 8 (8’ x 10’) adjustable wall from 15 to 40 degrees with the Grasshopper Ninja flow, engage, and power set with LED lights.  I am enjoying it as a tool to stay fit for the few times I get to go climbing outside.  It is also nice that you can climb very easy or very hard problems, warm up well on good holds, and train on hard holds (crimps, pinches, slopers, underclings).  I haven’t spent much time climbing other boards but to me the hold design is interesting enough, more so than Kilter to me, but again, haven’t climbed a lot on other boards.  I do find the grades to be all over the place on the app.  The consensus to me seems to be that the grades are harder than on the kilter board app. I would like to see more consistent setting from Grasshopper and or pros and more of a community of quality routes set for all the board sizes of Grasshopper.  Hoping they will get there, they are still a young system board company so hopefully with time.  All in all, I am happy with my set up, I use it often, and it is keeping me fit for climbing outside!  Also it is a good board for all levels of climbing, another plus.

I have had the ninja for a while and I think some of the grading issues are from not everyone has the holds flipped the same way, since a lot of then have a more or less incut side. The two big peanuts in the corners i have as sloping pinches,  but is that right? Idk. Not clear from the app or setting instructions.

edit: I had all my peanuts upside down. They are correct now. Double check your install instructions i guess.

if you set, drop me a dm at Glen eagle grasshopper , stoked to see more people on it and i like chatting with other people who set on it

I am surprised that this thread is mostly positive regarding the grasshopper board, as I have found it to be quite bad, which seems to be the near unanimous consensus of people I have discussed it with irl.

JohnWesely Wesely wrote:

I am surprised that this thread is mostly positive regarding the grasshopper board, as I have found it to be quite bad, which seems to be the near unanimous consensus of people I have discussed it with irl.

Lol, if i ever said something positive about it, i retract everything. Get a mini moonboard. Or do what i did and just keep the grasshopper frame

John Clark wrote:

Lol, if i ever said something positive about it, i retract everything. Get a mini moonboard. Or do what i did and just keep the grasshopper frame

That is an amazing hold selection. Wow.  Not cheap, tho.

randy baum wrote:

That is an amazing hold selection. Wow.  Not cheap, tho.

The taylormades are a pretty penny, but beastmaker was way cheaper than all but maybe the older moon sets. When i sold my Grasshopper holds and LEDs, i bought the full symmetric board beastmaker set, extra feet, a small set of dumbells, and a blubber and still have $7 leftover from the sale

John Clark wrote:

Lol, if i ever said something positive about it, i retract everything. Get a mini moonboard. Or do what i did and just keep the grasshopper frame

I am pretty surprised someone was willing to buy the holds. Your new board looks great.

The price i sold it for was plenty to replace, but still an amazing deal for a led board.

Post limit reply to below:

I just had the basic core 8x10 hold set, so maybe it is better in a large format with the Tweeners. Holds are either slopers or jugs, with no real in betweens. Also, the feet are on the same track. Huuuuge, or hard sloper feet. In a vacuum, it’s fine, but for the money, there are much better boards available.

oh and lack of iterest from the company. Still top of the leaderboard, but haven’t been on the board in a year. Used to do all the benchmarks both ways at all angles as a fun 45 min workout

JohnWesely Wesely wrote:

I am surprised that this thread is mostly positive regarding the grasshopper board, as I have found it to be quite bad, which seems to be the near unanimous consensus of people I have discussed it with irl.

What is bad about it in your opinion? I've climbed on it a bunch and don't really have any major complaints. It's definitely a few notches below other boards I've climbed on but I'm usually able to have a pretty enjoyable session.

John Goodlander wrote:

What is bad about it in your opinion? I've climbed on it a bunch and don't really have any major complaints. It's definitely a few notches below other boards I've climbed on but I'm usually able to have a pretty enjoyable session.

1. The holds are very unergonomic. The edges of almost every hold is completely flat with very little variety. Even on moonboard 2016, where the holds are pretty nasty, there is at least variety in how you grip the grabs, so the stress is less repetitive.
2. Around 20 of the holds a buckets that won't be used for anything but throwaway moves on anything harder than v3. Around ten of the holds are mounted dead vertically. Most of these are concentrated in the bottom and middle of the board where they are hyper awkward/unpleasant to use. Again, bad ergonomics. Having so many holds that are not really useful reduces the variety of possible movements and really contributes to a feeling of sameness with the problems.
3. Compounding on the above point is the mirrored layout, which even further reduces the unique movements available for setters.
4. Having a kickboard with no holds on it is awkward. This might be more of a personal gripe, but it does create a very unnatural situation you would never find on a real climb.
5. Most of the holds seem to have a sweet spot at specific angle. This means that any given angle, a narrow subsection of the holds are really in play with the others being way too good or way too bad.
   
   There are probably other things I have not thought of, but on the whole it seems like the board was conceived fairly carelessly. A 2016 moonboard set at 25 degrees would be way better for beginners than the grasshopper set at 25, and it wasn't even intended for that at when designed.

I basically agree with a lot of your points but somehow I still have fun on it. 

I figured it would be good to get some specific criticism out there for potential buyers. There wasn't a lot of negative opinions out there when I bought the holds (not the standing board) and I think I would have benefitted from more opinions. 

If you are considering buying the grasshopper my final takeaway after three years of consistent climbing on the ninja layout is that it's probably not worth the cost. You'll probably have fun and get stronger / better at certain skills but for the cost another board is probably a better investment. 

My biggest gripe is the lack of interest from Grasshopper company itself. I told them I was interested in the tweener hold set but that I was curious if there would be any effort to add more bench marks/climbs to make it a worthy investment.  Received no reply.  I guess they’re not too interested in that sort of thing.  I do enjoy my Ninja set up but I find myself losing interest in the holds and sets. Would I prefer the TB2 8x10? Yes, but for the price I think the GH holds set up gets you started at a good price point, at least when I bought it…  what other hold sets would everyone recommend for an 8x10? 

Alexander Patterson wrote:

My biggest gripe is the lack of interest from Grasshopper company itself. I told them I was interested in the tweener hold set but that I was curious if there would be any effort to add more bench marks/climbs to make it a worthy investment.  Received no reply.  I guess they’re not too interested in that sort of thing.  I do enjoy my Ninja set up but I find myself losing interest in the holds and sets. Would I prefer the TB2 8x10? Yes, but for the price I think the GH holds set up gets you started at a good price point, at least when I bought it…  what other hold sets would everyone recommend for an 8x10? 

Ditch the system board and get a beastmaker full board unique set. That’s what i did and i am very very happy. Augment with some Hardwood Holds, Taylormade, and your favorite screw on crimps

Another option is to buy used.  Check out Climbing Exchange and Climbing Holds groups on Facebook.  Search Used Climbing Holds on eBay and Facebook Marketplace.  Classic shapes/sets come up often. 

John Clark wrote:

The answer to “how tall of a board can I have under x ft ceiling at y angle?” can be found in that geometry/trig class you thought you’d never use in high school.

 I don't to mean to stray too far off topic here, but I am woefully bad at math, mostly due to a lack of trying (which I now regret). At risk of sounding like a doofus and feeling slightly embarrassed... What is said formula? I've been thinking of building a homewall and have been struggling to figure this out.

Evan S wrote:

 I don't to mean to stray too far off topic here, but I am woefully bad at math, mostly due to a lack of trying (which I now regret). At risk of sounding like a doofus and feeling slightly embarrassed... What is said formula? I've been thinking of building a homewall and have been struggling to figure this out.

https://www.mathsisfun.com/pythagoras.html

Evan S wrote:

 I don't to mean to stray too far off topic here, but I am woefully bad at math, mostly due to a lack of trying (which I now regret). At risk of sounding like a doofus and feeling slightly embarrassed... What is said formula? I've been thinking of building a homewall and have been struggling to figure this out.

If "r" is the length of the board (we use "r" for reasons beyond the scope of this discussion) then the height of the board if the base angle is "theta" will be equal to "r * sin(theta)".

So, a 12ft board mounted at 55 degrees would have a height of 12 ft * sin(55 degrees), i.e. roughly 9.8ft.

(to answer your next question: it would stick out 12ft * cos(55 degrees) from the base)

If you know the height (since you can measure your ceiling) and you know the board length, you can figure out the maximum angle by solving for theta.

h = r * sin(theta)

sin(theta) = h/r

theta = arcsin(h/r)

(note that many calculators give the result in radians!)

If you type "arcsin(9.82/12) in degrees" into google, you will probably get the right answer (I say probably because who knows with software that changes on a day to day basis).

Of course, the real world is a little more complex, since you'll want a kicker and the board itself has non-zero thickness (you need to be thinking about the top of the backside of the board, not the top of the frontside of the board).

Even as an engineer, i just google triangle calculator