the shizzle > diet, training and injuries

Climbing Walls and Gyms. Rules that drive you nuts or make you leave.

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jwi:
No bouldering wall in Toulouse and more or less no bouldering wall in Barcelona allow for loose chalk. They all require liquid chalk. Which is horrible and doesn't really work, or work temporarly because there is resin in the mix, cakeing the holds in a miserable slop. (Please don't use these products outside!) However, many of the walls tacitly allow loose chalk, if hidden discretely, at the training boards (as those cannot be cleaned regularly and imagine the state of those if people were using resin!). I avoid any gym not having a board were surreptitiously use of chalk is allowed.

Tops on is not a huge deal for me, super light weight vests exist for exactly this reason. Belay tests are fine if I don't have to pay for them. (I can pretend to tie in with a figure of eight for a day. I can even belay with an ATC for a day if my partner promise not to fall or hang.)

The biggest dealbreaker for me is bad or too unvaried setting in my grade range. Just leave and don't come back until reliable sources inform that the setting has gotten better.

I hate when I have to give up my phone number for membership. I do not trust gyms not to loose this data or have an employee sell it on (took about one week of having a new number in Spain until someone had sold it on to spammers/scammers). I should really have a fake number memorised for all such inquires. I have a fake email memorised that I always use if I have to give it up.

Tom de Gay:
Silently changing the policy of who can climb there.

At the sprog’s insistence, we made a long trip to a certain London bouldering wall designed with kids and beginners in mind. We were barred from entering at 4pm on a Saturday, as it turned out they had changed their policy a couple of weeks earlier and kids were no longer allowed in after 4pm. No announcement of this by email, in their monthly newsletter, on insta/twitter. 

I did not lose my shit, but the 4 year-old – seeing adults and older kids climbing in a decidedly unbusy wall – felt unfairly excluded had a major meltdown on the way home. It has taken him about a year to rekindle enthusiasm for climbing. But we won't be going back there.

Fair enough if a policy needs to change, but maybe tell your customers first.

galpinos:

--- Quote from: SA Chris on March 26, 2024, 06:42:35 pm ---
--- Quote from: galpinos on March 26, 2024, 03:27:12 pm ---[.... and it finally hit me. OTE 78

--- End quote ---

Doubt I still have that one!

--- End quote ---

Always in easy reach of my home office desk…..

SA Chris:

--- Quote from: Tom de Gay on March 27, 2024, 12:15:28 pm ---a certain London bouldering wall

--- End quote ---

Name and shame...

Bradders:
I'm increasingly convinced that the holds used on the black circuit at the Armley Depot are designed to put people off climbing as they're just getting into it. You start off, maybe you can climb a few blues and think you should try the next circuit up, only to meet the most awful holds ever made. Crestfallen you sack it all off because if that's what a V2 feels like who knows how painfully miserable a V5 will feel.

For those who haven't been, they're universally these horrendous massive flat jugs, all angular blocks which are unpleasant to hold in any grip type and force a sort of jerky, locky, brainless style of climbing.

Luckily there is the pink circuit covering a similar grade spread, which by contrast seems to feature a plethora of joyful, interesting movement, but in contrast it makes it all the more bizarre that they persist with the blacks when they're so clearly awful.

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