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Sydney climbing gyms - my thoughts so far 17-Feb-2010 At 1:21:07 PM Mr Stu

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Whilst I'm sure Garbie will be along soon to respond more fully, I set the boulder problems at St Peters so I'll reply on a couple of things.

I've haven't been to Climbfit ever so can't comment on the quality of their problems. The main boulder setters at St Peters, Jan and Simon are very experienced and have both set at world comps. I've also got plenty of experience having set for many years (including at the Castle before moving here). Plus, the occssional celebrity turns up needing some extra cash so they do a bit too. A lot of effort goes into to putting the problems up, with plenty of tweaking and testing- hopefully there is a good mix with something for everyone. We don't tend to set traverse problems because they make people get in the way of each other and cause log jams This wouldn't normally be a problem if some commonsense was shown, but unfortunately it isn't.

Once you get used to the system it works fine and *almost* correlates to V grades with a 1 being V0 -V1 ish (ie something you can do in your runners) until you get to 4 which with a '-' or '+' can be V4 - easy V6 and 5 being hard V6-V8 and 6 being V8 and above. No, its not completely accurate but its not a million miles away.
All the start holds are tagged with the grade and you should be able to trace the line quite easily. Sometimes holds of similar colours run close to each other or mixed holds are used and these are generally taped to avoid confusion.

Problems are changed very regularly - an area of panels (for example the 45, the roof, the 60 + headwall) is set on a 2 weekly rotation, depending on setter availability.

The fans - Well, considering the humidy and heat we experienced recently, I wouldn't want to not have them on,regardless of the amount of noise they make. Try staying well clear of them for a while and see how that feels!

If you ever want a pointer for any problem, look out for me (shaved head, stripey wife-beater). I'm in there Mon and Weds eve and happy to spew beta at anyone who'll listen ;)