[Wellsy]

Been loving the Kilter Board of late. It's so fun! Chucking myself around and pulling hard. The one at the Hanger is set at 50° and that feels great for a raw power and strength session (@Fiend take note)

Anyone recommend any problems in particular? Anyone got any opinions to share on the Kilter Board generally?

[petejh]

Bit of kilter chat here: https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,30287.0.html

[User deactivated.]

While my house was being extended and I lost my old board, I spent a few months on the kilter and found my crimp strength went down. There are a few crimps on the board, but it's harder to find problems that have sustained crimping. I can't remember the names of many, but 'Han 1' rings a bell as a crimp problem I had in my circuit. 

[Wellsy]

Interesting thoughts Liam. I'll say I tend to have a Kilter Session and a non-Kilter wooden board (classic cellar type) session each week, plus two indoor circuit sessions, and with that plus fingerboarding at the moment my fingers feel v strong, both on the fingerboard and on the wall. I can see what you mean, a lot of the holds are not limiting in terms of finger strength. That said my fingers seem stronger than ever, albeit with other training stimulus

I feel like the Kilter is good for tension, power, body strength and raw pulling in the arms and upper back, maybe less good for fingers, but then those other things are good too.

[Wellsy]

I'll say I find it more fun, and less skin wrecking, than a moonboard

[mrjonathanr]

The Beacon one is fun, I look forward to sessions on that. Not tried any others. Good solid thuggery, can’t beat it.

[thunderbeest]

Don't like it too much. I find the relevance of climbing only on semi jugs limited. When climbing very jumpy and cutting loose everything feels 2 grades overgraded  ut when trying to keep the tension a lot of the medium hard ones already start feeling impossible. And unfortunately i don't find many boulders outside where it's only semi jugs and space to cut loose.
Because of the gamification i struggle to go for form over will te send and tick the boulder.
Ones the boulders become hard and the use the feet for crimps I don't really like the holds either because I don't like crimping with 2 fingers only.

[jwi]

I found the Kilter Board OK at 45-50 degrees. Almost every hold is a jug, and at 40 degrees, almost every move even at pretty low grades is a jump cutting loose. At 50 degrees some problems required me to keep at least one foot on. OTOH my better half who is even worse at bouldering then I am and found the Kilter board a fun way to train for steep routes.

At my pretty intermediate level of bouldering I found it all a bit samey and for some reason it was not very tempting to work stuff I could not flash/do within three goes.

The holds are of good quality though, and the lighting system is very convenient. If they replaced about half of the holds to other hold type than a rounded jug it could be a good system.

Re OP, I don't remember any particular problems, but the problems set by Jimmy Webb where among the better. Shocking, I know.

[Fiend]

Been loving the Kilter Board of late. It's so fun! Chucking myself around and pulling hard. The one at the Hanger is set at 50° and that feels great for a raw power and strength session (@Fiend take note)

I've been back on the Depot 30° woodie already, thanks! Clawing my way back to 2022's levels of weakness.

[stone]

They discuss Kilterboard at 21mins in  

[mark20]

Re OP, I don't remember any particular problems, but the problems set by Jimmy Webb where among the better. Shocking, I know.

At my lowly 7A/+ grade, I though these problems were very typical of the Kilter board, fairly unimaginative grab and jump type problems. Maybe that's what it's all about though?
I do enjoy it, and it seems hard to set anything totally shit (unlike the nearest competitor with pages of dreadful problems on minging holds..) but I feel like I'd be getting much more benefit from struggling up the crimpy 6B+ problems with shit feet on the woody next door!

[Duncan Disorderly]

I don't like it at all... I find the holds all too big, not a nice texture for my skin (seems to just slip and never feel solid) and in order to make it hard enough it needs to be super steep which doesn't translate to anything I want to do outside at all... Much prefer the Moonboard (I'll add the caveat that I'm also fucking weak so that probably doesn't help...).

I think it looks cool when strong boys and girls are jumping around on it but feel it's a bit like modern, comp style, gym climbing; not really translatable to real rock (or maybe just not translatable ratty limestone or mountain trad??? - That said the modern comp climbers do seem quite handy on those  ). It could be totally translatable to Rocklands or Albaracin but I'd not know about that....

[Wellsy]

Interesting to me that the original thread that was linked was quite positive by and large, and this thread is largely rather negative. I do wonder if Kilter should try and include more crap holds?

[Paul B]

(unlike the nearest competitor with pages of dreadful problems on minging holds..)

I'd imagine you mean the Moonboard here. It's worth remembering that for its flaws that it was the original board of this type and was well ahead of Kilter.

[Fultonius]

Anyone tried a tension board? Looks like a good middle ground of some shitty holds and some more kilter esque.

[jwi]

I much prefer boards with bad, preferably slippery, holds. Climbing is about desperately clinging to and making moves between small holds. But I like the grades on the Kilter.

Anyone tried a tension board? Looks like a good middle ground of some shitty holds and some more kilter esque.

The Tension-board holds look prohibitively expensive in Europe. I looked into getting them and there wasn't even a distributor in EU, but now there is one: https://artrock.at/product/tension-board-holds-komplett-set-kopie/

I also detest setting problems on symmetric boards and if I never have to climb on a symmetric board again it is not too soon.

[Paul B]

I much prefer boards with bad, preferably slippery, holds. Climbing is about desperately clinging to and making moves between small.

I think you've just described the type of board that translates to climbing well (in the UK these would typically be Beastmaker boards). I don't find them particularly fun to climb on though, and the lower angled, domed foothold BUK board always made me fear for my elbows/fingers.

[Dexter]

I also detest setting problems on symmetric boards and if I never have to climb on a symmetric board again it is not too soon.

This is interesting to me because I love symmetric boards. Both for setting and training on. Nothing highlights weaknesses like flashing one side and struggling with its mirror.

[teestub]

I do enjoy it, and it seems hard to set anything totally shit (unlike the nearest competitor with pages of dreadful problems on minging holds..) but I feel like I'd be getting much more benefit from struggling up the crimpy 6B+ problems with shit feet on the woody next door!

I’ve actually grown to love the moonboard hold selection, I always used to think they would be uncomfortable and skin wrecking, but haven’t found this with a lot of use now. I think the benefit over woodies with fixed feet is being able to climb problems with big moves on small handholds and big feet, and also having to generate tension with your feet off to the side etc., rather than just stepping up onto the next row of small feet.

[yetix]

I find periods of climbing on screw on feet boards just lead to me climbing awfully compared to feet follow boards. I get stronger but terrible at moving through awkward positions which is what most hard boulders feel like to me (maybe I'm avoiding the particularly ratty boulders?) .

The kilter board somehow avoids these awkward position moves despite being feet follow, but I feel the kilter board unsurprisingly is great training for places which involve lots of distance moves of bigger holds but less good at creating awkward movement like lets say a moonboard. Places like magic woods for example the KB is surely a great tool for (though I'm sure there are some v crimpy exceptions to this) as generally the holds are pretty good but a bit sloped and the feet are massive.

The old set on boulder UK 55 was my favourite at a climbing wall, but personally I think over 40 (maybe 45) too steep for me as a board really as I can only drag everything I'm going to be able to hold at that angle and as a result much preferred my old home setup where I felt I could utilise alot more hold and grip type variety (but this is just I'm too weak for such a steep angle I guess!)

[yetix]

In terms of boulders I like, much like jwi I rate Jimmy's blocs and also griffin whitesides generally and just try to work my way through theirs.

Also can't say I massively agree with the overgraded comments, they're just quite basic no? I have to drop my grade by 2 grades at least normally compared to what I'd do in the same time on rock.

[jwi]

I think you've just described the type of board that translates to climbing well (in the UK these would typically be Beastmaker boards). I don't find them particularly fun to climb on though

I've climbed a bit on one of those. I liked it quite a lot for a symmetrical board. But I didn't like that I wasn't allowed to track feet (I feel that this force a very inept climbing style that I don't particularly like to reinforce). As almost no one else used the board I sometimes ignored this rule.

[Fiend]

I much prefer boards with bad, preferably slippery, holds. Climbing is about desperately clinging to and making moves between small holds.

That is precisely why I like the Depot 30 board. Okay so generally to use smaller / rattier holds, I have to use the larger footholds, but fuck it, I'm a 6C punter not one of the rest of you strong wankers, I'm training what feels more relevant and enjoyable. And at least they're better than "feet on jugs" which is what most M**nboarding feels like.

I also detest setting problems on symmetric boards and if I never have to climb on a symmetric board again it is not too soon.

OTOH this is definitely the wrong opinion. I bloody love symmetrical boards, partly autism, partly aesthetics, partly interesting seeing how different sides climb (sometimes hampered by some Depot 30 symmetrical holds being not remotely symmetrical once you're at your limit), partly getting 2-for-1 value out of setting one problem. If I never even SAW a non-symmetrical board again I'd be happy. Conversely if something like the M**board was fully symmetrical, had just wooden holds, and had feet on jibs instead of feet-follow-hands-by-massive-reachy-extensions-or-horribly-bunched-foot-up-arse-after-the-usual-moronic-yarding, then I could be tempted back.

[Bradders]

Something I've been learning (the hard way) lately is that different boards serve very different purposes, or should be used to train different things.

In my case, my home board is relatively short being only c. 2.5m or so high and 45', with limited headroom or space in front of it. This means cutting loose isn't really an option whilst problems also tend to be quite short, which condenses what's possible in terms of setting hard moves. This means it's great for setting things in very tight boxes, on weird off to the side feet and working on tension where it is essential to keep your feet on, but it doesn't work very well at setting things which require big pulls through on spaced holds where you're using a lot of arm strength.

The Kilter is at the complete opposite end of that spectrum, where the style relies heavily on arm strength and pulling, along with some weird body positions in fairness.

To me the gold standard of boards, in terms of transfer to rock strength, is and always will be the Pudsey Depot 50. It requires the same pure arm strength as the Kilter whilst also being fiercely crimpy, with generally rubbish footholds making it hard to keep tension which works your core. But even that has downsides, for instance I'm too weak to be able to work on locky problems on it as the footholds are too bad, whilst my home board is great for that.

I think where commercial wall woodies are failing currently is the use of footholds that are simply too positive, alongside handholds that tend towards fat pinches at the exclusion of really incut edges. The Armley Depot boards are the zenith of this, and whilst I've had a good session on the 45 there recently I don't think that style of slopey handholds and positive perfectly spaced feet is ever going to translate well to rock. Going back to the Kilter, that does at least require some weird hand and feet combos which I think translates well, along with that arm strength.

Point is, no one board is perfect and best to get a bit of variety and try to tailor your session to the board you're on at the time.

[thunderbeest]

I only had one session on the tension board but I have my hopes it fits between the kilter and the moon.
If you're not good at dynamic climbing I think the kilter is a good place to work it but I have never flashed a 7B on the moon board or outside but my first session in the kilter I did a handful up to 7C, so Indo find the grades a little easier.

The kilter and Tension cost about the same. About 150 000 NOK.

[crimpinainteasy]

In terms of boulders I like, much like jwi I rate Jimmy's blocs and also griffin whitesides generally and just try to work my way through theirs.

Also can't say I massively agree with the overgraded comments, they're just quite basic no? I have to drop my grade by 2 grades at least normally compared to what I'd do in the same time on rock.

I think it's partly dependent on the grade you're climbing at. I find the kilter board is particularly soft at the 7B and below range but evens out at v10+.

[Wellsy]

In terms of boulders I like, much like jwi I rate Jimmy's blocs and also griffin whitesides generally and just try to work my way through theirs.

Also can't say I massively agree with the overgraded comments, they're just quite basic no? I have to drop my grade by 2 grades at least normally compared to what I'd do in the same time on rock.

I think it's partly dependent on the grade you're climbing at. I find the kilter board is particularly soft at the 7B and below range but evens out at v10+.

Jesus stab me right in the heart why don't you? Lol

[yetix]

I do 7Bs faster outside than on a kb for what it's worth. 7C is my peak on kb, I've done two I think and both took 3 sessions. I've done 100ish 7Cs outside by comparison and done a few in that many goes. Styles and what you're used to I would guess?

[abarro81]

I think Kilter is pretty soft if you like big moves on good holds. I've never flashed 8A outside but supposedly did on my first session on the Kilter. I thought lots of the 7B-C stuff would probably be 1-2 grades easier on the Moonboard... But I do like big moves on good holds

[jwi]

I don't understand indoor grading of boulders at all. Outdoors, I expect to climb about the same grade regardless if it is in Ogawayama, Yosemite or Fontainbleau. Indoor I have to calibrate at every gym even though they use much of the same brand of holds.

I don't think it is particularly useful to compare flash-grades inside and outside though. Especially on boards. Unless it is the first time in your life you touch the specific holds on a problem it is not flash. And quite often two board problems share the same move somewhere, and if you've done one, the second can never be a flash.

If allowing flash on boards I would expect to flash harder grades indoors than outdoors. The same for any indoor wall really. If I go to a gym a few times and do some circuits, I know all the holds in the gym and thus can never truly flash again.

[JamieG]

I don't understand indoor grading of boulders at all.

Fixed that for you (and in reality everyone else too). 

[crimpinainteasy]

I don't understand indoor grading of boulders at all. Outdoors, I expect to climb about the same grade regardless if it is in Ogawayama, Yosemite or Fontainbleau. Indoor I have to calibrate at every gym even though they use much of the same brand of holds.

I don't think it is particularly useful to compare flash-grades inside and outside though. Especially on boards. Unless it is the first time in your life you touch the specific holds on a problem it is not flash. And quite often two board problems share the same move somewhere, and if you've done one, the second can never be a flash.

If allowing flash on boards I would expect to flash harder grades indoors than outdoors. The same for any indoor wall really. If I go to a gym a few times and do some circuits, I know all the holds in the gym and thus can never truly flash again.

Tbh I don't think grades don't make that much sense in general. I.e. I feel like 7b at the cuttings, 7b in cheddar, and 7b in Mallorca all feel different even accounting for style.