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Woody Advice Canberra 30-Sep-2019 At 3:02:27 PM jacksonclimbs

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Congrats! I'm also expecting my first in December and prepping for the inevitable descent into becoming a boulderer ;)

I'm a big fan of the moonboard, the community and the idea of not having to come up with my own problems. Travel with work has meant that I have climbed on a few different moonboards. The one they have in Auckland has trimmed the bottom off the kicker so that the lower set of feet are pretty much on the ground. This makes a lot of the problems really difficult, as you have less space to pull up into and generate momentum - particularly with the new set of holds, that has a lot of lower awkward sit starts. I can't see cutting off the top set of holds would work well either, as every problem is designed to finish on the top out row. I really don't think it's worth doing a moonboard unless you can do it to the spec - if I had the roof clearance I would definitely build one.

As for putting it outside, I've seen people do that before but personally I'd take a non-moonboard inside where I can train year round with air con vs. an outdoor wall. I just can't get as psyched to train in dry Melbourne heat for 2 months and the winter months here are pretty wet. I've also read in climber posts about 'preparing for parenthood' that you want your training tools as close to the living area where you will be with the baby, as possible, and that if it is outside, then you're much less likely to use it.

I first built a woody at the start of 2018 in my garage, I went with 40 deg and it was 2.9m of travel with a 17cm kicker. I got it in a space that I think was a 2.55m ceiling - you have to take into account that unless you angle off the top of the board, you will be restricted with space. I've put a few drill holes in the top beam and thrown on some slopers for top out holds.

Since moving house, I've rebuilt my board from the same materials. I have more clearance here - still not enough to do a moonboard though - and so I went with a 30 degree wall as I found that the 40 degree was a bit too overhanging to make it worthwhile training for what we actually climb on here in Victoria. I also increased the kicker to 30 cm. Setting is a pain. I've tried recreating boulder problems and cruxes from outdoor problems by watching videos and that has helped a bit.

The mistake I did make, is that I just went with a random offset spacing for the bolt holes. If I did it again, I'd actually use the moonboard spec spacing on the panels, so that if and when I upgrade to a moonboard, I can at least salvage the panels from the old woody.