We have another bouldering event coming up next Thursday, our second SummerSweatFest event of the season. We've been calling these events "competitions", and indeed there is a competitive element to them for some people. Each participant keeps score, and there are awards for the top finishers in each category.
The down side of using the word "competition" is that it seems to keep some people from participating, because they think they aren't good enough. That's nonsense. I'm participating, and I'm really not very good. Really, I'm not. Ask any of my staff! But I "compete" because it's fun, and so see whether I can improve from event to event.
So this time I'm going to call next Thursday's event a "Bouldering Festival" instead. Yes, there will still be a scorecard for each participant to keep track of how they're doing. But think of it like a mini-golf scorecard. You keep score, but you don't have to take it very seriously if you don't want to.
We kept the problems from our last event up on the walls for a few weeks, to give everyone a chance to try them out (they're being taken down this week as we move ahead on our routesetting). Hopefully some of you took the opportunity to try out the problems to see how many you could do. If you were able to get at least a handful of them, it's worth coming out to next Thursday evening's SummerSweatFest Bouldering Festival, for 3 hours of bouldering fun with a great bunch of people. We had 79 competitors - er, participants - at our last SummerSweatFest in July, and hope to grow that number this time around. There will be some raffle prizes again, so no matter how you do at the problems, there's a chance to go home with a prize!
So come join us Thursday August 19th!
Showing posts with label bouldering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bouldering. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Banned From My Own Gym!
I have been banned from my gym for today and most of tomorrow. No, I haven't been behaving badly (no worse than usual at least). I've been convinced by my staff to compete at our SummerSweatFest competition Thursday evening, and that means it wouldn't be fair for me to be around the gym while they're setting for it. So I get a couple of days off, which I actually desperately need right now anyway.
Don't get the wrong idea here; I am not a serious competition climber. I'm a V1/V2 boulderer, and generally finish very close to the bottom of the Men's Recreational division, able to do perhaps a quarter of all the problems in a given comp. The point of my competing tomorrow is really to set an example for those who think they are not good enough to enter a competition. If you can do the white problems and some of the yellow ones in our gym, you'll be able to do enough of the comp problems to keep you busy for a while, and you'll have a lot of fun. These comps are friendly and the other climbers will be very supportive. If you have ever even wondered what a bouldering competition is like, come on out and "compete" Thursday evening. Think of it as a chance to come have fun bouldering with an enthusiastic group of like-minded individuals.
As added incentive, there will be some raffle prizes for the Youth & Recreational divisions, generously donated by some of our sponsors. We'll have about a dozen prizes to give out, so the odds are decent. Those in the Open category will be competing for a cash prize funded by their registration fees.
Full details about the comp are available at http://summersweatfest.com/comps.php.
We encourage you to register in advance and print out your scorecard. If this will be your first visit to our gym, you can save time by bringing a completed waiver form (signed by your parent if you are under 18). Waiver forms are available for download from http://truenorthclimbing.com/content/waivers.
Don't get the wrong idea here; I am not a serious competition climber. I'm a V1/V2 boulderer, and generally finish very close to the bottom of the Men's Recreational division, able to do perhaps a quarter of all the problems in a given comp. The point of my competing tomorrow is really to set an example for those who think they are not good enough to enter a competition. If you can do the white problems and some of the yellow ones in our gym, you'll be able to do enough of the comp problems to keep you busy for a while, and you'll have a lot of fun. These comps are friendly and the other climbers will be very supportive. If you have ever even wondered what a bouldering competition is like, come on out and "compete" Thursday evening. Think of it as a chance to come have fun bouldering with an enthusiastic group of like-minded individuals.
As added incentive, there will be some raffle prizes for the Youth & Recreational divisions, generously donated by some of our sponsors. We'll have about a dozen prizes to give out, so the odds are decent. Those in the Open category will be competing for a cash prize funded by their registration fees.
Full details about the comp are available at http://summersweatfest.com/comps.php.
We encourage you to register in advance and print out your scorecard. If this will be your first visit to our gym, you can save time by bringing a completed waiver form (signed by your parent if you are under 18). Waiver forms are available for download from http://truenorthclimbing.com/content/waivers.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Nationals
Last weekend was the annual Canadian National Bouldering Championships, the culmination of a fantastic Tour de Bloc season. Joe Rockheads was the host gym, and they put on a fine (if somewhat hot) show. True North Climbing was well-represented, with 4 of our routesetters competing in the Open category, one of us judging, and some of our members also competing.
I took the judging course Friday night, to learn both how to judge bouldering problems, and what is involved in being the Jury President (aka Head Judge) for a competition. We plan to have a bunch of comps at our gym, and at some point I figure I should be prepared to be the head judge, so this was a start in that direction. (At our inaugural Tour de Bloc comp on march 27th I had the role of "host", which was a lot of fun, and required little training!).
Saturday was the qualifying round for the Open competitors. 15 women and 45 men each did 5 boulder problems in iso format, with 5 minutes to work on each problem and 5 minutes to rest in between. I was the judge on problem #2, which for the women featured a fun dyno opening move, and a nice balancing finish, with both hands high on the wall in a taped box with no handhold.
Sunday morning and early afternoon was the "citizen's comp": Youth, Recretional and Experienced categories in a scramble format, choosing among 50 problems (including the 10 qualifiers from Saturday) to get their best 6 scores. Sunday at 5pm the finals began, with the top 10 men and women (actually 11 men due to a tie for 10th place) again working their way through 5 problems each. It was very hot in the gym, and perhaps in part because of that, the men's problems were very tough on the finalists.
Our Head Instructor/Routesetter Dustin Curtis was 7th after qualifiers, and finished 10th on Sunday, earning him another berth on the Canadian team. Dustin will be heading to Vail, Colorado in June for the World Cup event as part of the Teva Mountain Games. Stephen Tambling just missed the cutoff for finals, finishing 12th in Men's Open. Dustin Kerr and Shaun Hunter rounded out the TNCI team, with DK having a spectacular fall on men's problem #3 on Saturday (extra padding went up right after that!).
Watching the comp as a judge was a very different perspective. I got to see all the climbers, but pretty much only on one problem each, each day. I got a great view up close, but had to keep my mouth shut instead of cheering them on. It was a good learning experience, and it's good to have more people trained to do this, to support the sport as it grows.
I took the judging course Friday night, to learn both how to judge bouldering problems, and what is involved in being the Jury President (aka Head Judge) for a competition. We plan to have a bunch of comps at our gym, and at some point I figure I should be prepared to be the head judge, so this was a start in that direction. (At our inaugural Tour de Bloc comp on march 27th I had the role of "host", which was a lot of fun, and required little training!).
Saturday was the qualifying round for the Open competitors. 15 women and 45 men each did 5 boulder problems in iso format, with 5 minutes to work on each problem and 5 minutes to rest in between. I was the judge on problem #2, which for the women featured a fun dyno opening move, and a nice balancing finish, with both hands high on the wall in a taped box with no handhold.
Sunday morning and early afternoon was the "citizen's comp": Youth, Recretional and Experienced categories in a scramble format, choosing among 50 problems (including the 10 qualifiers from Saturday) to get their best 6 scores. Sunday at 5pm the finals began, with the top 10 men and women (actually 11 men due to a tie for 10th place) again working their way through 5 problems each. It was very hot in the gym, and perhaps in part because of that, the men's problems were very tough on the finalists.
Our Head Instructor/Routesetter Dustin Curtis was 7th after qualifiers, and finished 10th on Sunday, earning him another berth on the Canadian team. Dustin will be heading to Vail, Colorado in June for the World Cup event as part of the Teva Mountain Games. Stephen Tambling just missed the cutoff for finals, finishing 12th in Men's Open. Dustin Kerr and Shaun Hunter rounded out the TNCI team, with DK having a spectacular fall on men's problem #3 on Saturday (extra padding went up right after that!).
Watching the comp as a judge was a very different perspective. I got to see all the climbers, but pretty much only on one problem each, each day. I got a great view up close, but had to keep my mouth shut instead of cheering them on. It was a good learning experience, and it's good to have more people trained to do this, to support the sport as it grows.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
The boulder from Boulder
A quick update on one of the cool features we're putting in the gym: a freestanding boulder. Here are a few shots of the early construction of it, which is happening at Eldorado's facility in Boulder, Colorado:
The boulder starts as a stack of 8 1-foot thick pieces of foam, glued together. It's been carved into its rough base shape. Next cement texture will be applied over the foam base, and that will be hand-carved to form all the holds. We decided not to install T-nuts for modular holds on this (although Eldorado is quite capable of doing that), because we want this to just sit in the middle of the gym and look like a real rock, about 8 feet high and 8 feet in diameter. It's intended as an easy boulder for kids and beginners, and a warm-up for more advanced climbers.
The boulder starts as a stack of 8 1-foot thick pieces of foam, glued together. It's been carved into its rough base shape. Next cement texture will be applied over the foam base, and that will be hand-carved to form all the holds. We decided not to install T-nuts for modular holds on this (although Eldorado is quite capable of doing that), because we want this to just sit in the middle of the gym and look like a real rock, about 8 feet high and 8 feet in diameter. It's intended as an easy boulder for kids and beginners, and a warm-up for more advanced climbers.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Wondering What Our New Gym Will Look Like Inside?
OK, the renderings are now starting to come in from our wall designer Jason at Eldorado, so we can start sharing peeks at what things are going to look like. We have been ready to start sharing this info since the landlord granted approval for us to build what we have in mind (in particular the "special feature"). I wanted to wait until we had some good quality renderings though, rather then posting screen grabs from Google Sketchup. I expect to post these gradually as they come in over the next few days, exposing the gym one section at a time.
Up first: the North Bouldering area. This is all top-out bouldering terrain, running about 70 feet along the north wall of the space, turning at the north-east corner, and running down the east wall about 40 feet. At the far left end of this terrain the top deck is about 5 feet off the ground. It rises to about 9 feet where the kid who looks like a cub scout is standing, and then to 12 feet a little farther along. The wall rises above the deck in the advanced area, reaching 14 feet where the kid is hanging by one arm above the spotter. There will be a grip rail all along the top edge, to try to help avoid having the top-outs be the crux of the problem. There will be two down-climbs for this area, one at the far left end, and one at the far right end (near the woman with the ponytail). You can click on the image below to see a larger version.
This section represents most, but not all of the bouldering in the gym. There will be another section near the reception desk that will be 11 feet high (not top-out), running about 30 feet in length. And there will be a small free-standing boulder intended as easy bouldering for kids and beginners (and warm-ups for more advanced climbers).
Enjoy the view. More to come in the days ahead!
Up first: the North Bouldering area. This is all top-out bouldering terrain, running about 70 feet along the north wall of the space, turning at the north-east corner, and running down the east wall about 40 feet. At the far left end of this terrain the top deck is about 5 feet off the ground. It rises to about 9 feet where the kid who looks like a cub scout is standing, and then to 12 feet a little farther along. The wall rises above the deck in the advanced area, reaching 14 feet where the kid is hanging by one arm above the spotter. There will be a grip rail all along the top edge, to try to help avoid having the top-outs be the crux of the problem. There will be two down-climbs for this area, one at the far left end, and one at the far right end (near the woman with the ponytail). You can click on the image below to see a larger version.
This section represents most, but not all of the bouldering in the gym. There will be another section near the reception desk that will be 11 feet high (not top-out), running about 30 feet in length. And there will be a small free-standing boulder intended as easy bouldering for kids and beginners (and warm-ups for more advanced climbers).
Enjoy the view. More to come in the days ahead!
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