Crash mats – nothing that a small square of carpet and a beer mat won’t protect you from 🙂
Seriously though, when I started climbing again I bought an Alpkit mat with my redundancy. Got me through a dark period nicely. I still struggle to instinctively trust the thing from higher up – I still boulder out stuff with the expectation of doing it, so don’t always commit to a high crux. I’ll get there though. I’m getting old too, I hesitate to jump off a high wall in the same way I would when younger. You might need a bigger car though 🙂

I’m not sure about bouldering mats, do they give you the incentive to stay on the problem ?
Sure we use to pad boulders with rucksacs but there was more of an incentive to stay on.
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Yes, get a mat. The Alpkit ones are good value like stever said.

What they give is the confidence to try harder! Don’t trust it blindly, you can still hurt yourself but they do take the sting out of normal landings and give you something to aim for if you have to bale out from high up.

Oh and they also make a very comfy portable sofa / mattress for chilling out and watching the scenery go by 🙂

To focus my mind and provide encouragement on tougher bouldering problems I always empty a bagful of broken bottles over my landing area.

Get a crash mat if you’re playing out. Good grief.

+1 for crash mats – especially for beginners where you will fall off occasionally. Good rock shoes are the more important thing, initially ignore those that say you should get ones so small they hurt, get ones that are comfortably tight and get them from a rock shoe shop, tell them youre a beginner and they should help.

Shoes and a mat, copy of boulder britain… your good to go!

Lugging a mat around on you bike might take the edge off your strava times 🙂

A mat makes a good mattress for the back of a van for post surf, ride, climb kip.

Always wondered who thhe idiot was who left broken glass at the bottom of crags.

Good rock shoes are the more important thing, initially ignore those that say you should get ones so small they hurt, get ones that are comfortably tight and get them from a rock shoe shop, tell them youre a beginner and they should help.

I’d just like to second this. If an “expert” in a shop tells you they should hurt, find another shop. They aren’t necessarily built for comfort, and people at the top of their game may want to have their toes crushed into odd positions for performance reasons, but as a beginner if your shoes aren’t comfortable then all it’ll do is discourage you from climbing.

I made this mistake. I bought a pair of the legendary 5.10 Anasazis after destroying my beginner pair and wanting something a bit more advanced. They’re the most amazing shoe ever but I bought the wrong size based on poor advice and they’re torture. I ended up getting another pair of better fitting, less technical ones for day-to-day playing and reserving the pink bastards for when I’m feeling adventurous. It’s probably not improved my climbing any, but it sure as hell increased my enjoyment of it.

(As an aside, my first pair died arresting a fall while bouldering. It was nothing severe, but when sticky rubber is sliding across Yorkshire gritstone there’s only ever going to be one winner.)

Long fingers won’t stop you climbing hard. Look how gangly Adam Ondra is!

Look how gangly Adam Ondra is!

His technique is terrible though

Pah 30 years, i started bouldering at Almscliffe some 40 years ago. We had one wall at Leeds Uni

Ah Almscliffe and Leeds Uni wall, bring back memories. Almscliffe and Brimham was my old stopming group in my early/mid teens, some 20 odd years ago, before 3 years at Leeds uni in the 90’s. Now living near Bristol too far from god’s own rock.

ianv – I am guessing that you are the ianv who I saw competing in the Leeds World Cup comp back in the day when Simon Nadin won?

The same one who was at the Yorkshire Open shortly before at Leeds Uni when Leach won?

I was competing in the juniors, not too ashamed to be beaten by the likes of Adam Wainwright, Neil Gresham, Dave Musgrove, and looking back chuffed to have beaten Matt Dickinson as when next met at Leeds Uni a few years later he was (and is) much better climber than me.

The same one who was at the Yorkshire Open shortly before at Leeds Uni when Leach won?

I never even knew there was a comp at Leeds Uni, what year was that?

1989. It was run by DR walls. It was held in sports hall not the actual Leeds Uni wall. Hailed as UK’s first indoor climbing comp, just got in before the Worlds.

Bouldering…hmmm: It’s like when your missus is away for the week and you have to “go solo”….
It ticks some of the boxes, but lacks a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi.. 😈

Bouldering…hmmm: It’s like when your missus is away for the week and you have to “go solo”….
It ticks some of the boxes, but lacks a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi.. [/quote]

Congratulations on your almost perfect use of UKclimbing cliche 🙄 . Whatever:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMNZGPnwve4[/video]

poor adam, has to have a hareem of mates to carry THAT many crash mats! 😉

Did you say Bikes and Bouldering?

Half way around a local loop that takes in several boulders. Shoes and chalk bag are in the bag, but this is steep and too hard for me to bother getting them out.
Anybody recognise the venue?
Marko

Most impressive, Adam appears to be the bastard offspring of an Amazonian tree frog and Maria Sharapova.

I don’t recognise the venue but is somewhere Churnet-y?

Caley me thinks just below the main track beyond the sugerloaf

forget that just seen the texture of the rock

very coarse grained grit, Rylstone but to much vegetation I give in

Bouldering Early 70s stylee,

we should have a bikes and bouldering STW meet. Agree a destination, ride to said place, boulder, ride back/on. 🙂

I might be up for a ride and rock meet if it’s in West Yorks area.
There’s plenty of scope to link venues in and around Calderdale.

Nope best spot would have to be Barden Moor taking in Eastby Deer Gallows Rylstone and crookrise with a few sneaky boulders on rote.

Bouldering Early 70s stylee

No chalk let alone mats… EB’s and thick woolly socks ftw!

elliptic – Member

Bouldering Early 70s stylee

No chalk let alone mats… EB’s and thick woolly socks ftw!
Posted 2 minutes ago # Report-Post

No chalk, well spotted. It was just about the time of chalk introduction. We use to take some blackboard chalk to the Leeds wall and “Scribble” on the window sill then a little bit on the fingers, it had to do for all the problem 🙂

The 2 in the picture are Al Manson and Pete Livsey [RIP] tother one is a much younger me

Remember the Lakeland Rock series, Pete dangling a fiver over the edge while CB flailed at the crux on Footless?

Or tying off the ropes on Right Wall so he could solo up the Gates and ab down for another look at the top bit…then tie back in to finish it!

Certainly do, if I remember right it was filmed over 2 days and someone took all the gear out on the Top Pitch so a big swing was in order, think it was MH who was the culprit.
The missing boulder on the cromlech as well 🙂

Like the old school bouldering DR.

Venue – way up there ^ ^ is Far (or Near) Harkening Rock in the FoD.

Marko

alpkit just posted a pic of a prototype bouldering mat that can be attached to a pannier rack on FB. It still looks a little bulky and unstable and prone to being blown by the wind but on quiet summer days? hmmm maybe. 🙂