What's most important to you as a climber when climbing indoors?

rging wrote:You would be hard pressed to find a worst place to live as a climber, maybe Louisiana.

Mississippi? Things tend to go out, not up there...

good ventilation, good problems, good long routes, frequent resets, campus board, cracks, separate playroom for kids, creative hardworking setters, good non-snobbish staff, off-peak discounts, stretch area, light fitness equipment, cafe.

climbnplay wrote:good ventilation, good problems, good long routes, frequent resets, campus board, cracks, separate playroom for kids, creative hardworking setters, good non-snobbish staff, off-peak discounts, stretch area, light fitness equipment, cafe.

You had me until cafe. Not cause I'm opposed to cafes in gyms. Just cause I never thought of it. Might be cool. I always thought a Jimmy Johns would do well attached to a climbing gym. Especially if they offered member discounts.

I don't think anyone has mention the factor that is most important to me during about a third of the year (summer): good, powerful AC. Even in Colorado, it can be nice to get to climb in an air conditioned building, for times midweek when you can't escape to high elevation. In the southeast, I imagine that good AC is a neccesity of life to a climbing gym... All the the good aspects of a gym won't mean much if it is sweltering hot.

Jon Zucco wrote: You had me until cafe. Not cause I'm opposed to cafes in gyms. Just cause I never thought of it. Might be cool. I always thought a Jimmy Johns would do well attached to a climbing gym. Especially if they offered member discounts.

a lot of English climbing centers have a cafe/lounge upstairs that serves solid food and good coffee. but jimmy john's would be great too - i love the #7.

one more thing - good natural lighting would be amazing. most US climbing centers I have visited have always felt a bit like a dungeon; i think in this regard most American gyms have a lot to learn from their European counterparts.

irene wrote: just chiming in... Cost per square foot in NYC is a big factor.

Yea, totally get that. Same deal in London, although we are spread over a larger area, and not on an island. But what is happening here is interesting:

There are 3 large gyms (one brand new), all are very good with tall walls, over 200 routes, more than one large bouldering area and good route turnover. Most climbers are a member of one of these. There is also a large and well established bouldering gym that also has some TRing and lead walls, although not as high. This is probably the third most frequented place, ahead of the newer and larger gym on the other side of the city.

But we also have about a half dozen smaller bouldering gyms and they are all successful. They are spread throughout the city, and are fair and competitive in terms of pricing. They also all have different opening times from 6am to midnight, so there is always somewhere to go. From my house I can walk to one, cycle to another in less than 20 min, and cycle to the rest in less than an hour.

It seems that this many gyms is only the beginning here. They are sort of self perpetuating - more gyms means more climbers - climbing then becomes more popular, requiring more gyms.

I don't know if this would work in NYC. My guess is that foot traffic in the gyms would be just as much of a problem as the cost for space. It blows my mind that London can support this many gyms, but they are all packed at peak times.

climbnplay wrote: a lot of English climbing centers have a cafe/lounge upstairs that serves solid food and good coffee. but jimmy john's would be great too - i love the #7. one more thing - good natural lighting would be amazing. most US climbing centers I have visited have always felt a bit like a dungeon; i think in this regard most American gyms have a lot to learn from their European counterparts.

I'm partial to the #12 add bacon. Mmmmm.

Natural lighting is definitely a plus, and yeah, good solid food and maybe a little coffee would be nice. Especially if it's one of those snow days where your plan is to pack yourself into the gym for the entirety of the day. Gotta get the full value on that day pass, right?

But honestly, all of the frills aside, I just want good, hard route setting and good quality training gear. Everything else is just icing on the cake. i.e.: if the people are snobbish, noobish, or snoobish, I can just ignore them. if the music is terrible, I can just turn on the i-pod. But there is nothing I can do about poor quality/awkward route setting.

Jon Zucco wrote: if the music is terrible, I can just turn on the i-pod.

Not when they're blasting dubstep at an unreasonable volume. There's nowhere to hide from that.

To that end, I'll add acoustics / noise management to the list of nice things to find in a gym. Some gyms get really loud and echoey at busy times, while others seem to have more surfaces that dampen the noise. Gym employees using restraint when it comes to music selection/volume is also important. I generally don't do well in loud environments, so this aspect is fairly important to me. There have been times that I've packed up and left the gym in the middle of a session, because the music volume was overwhelming.

JCM wrote: Not when they're blasting dubstep at an unreasonable volume. There's nowhere to hide from that. To that end, I'll add acoustics / noise management to the list of nice things to find in a gym. Some gyms get really loud and echoey at busy times, while others seem to have more surfaces that dampen the noise. Gym employees using restraint when it comes to music selection/volume is also important. I generally don't do well in loud environments, so this aspect is fairly important to me. There have been times that I've packed up and left the gym in the middle of a session, because the music volume was overwhelming.

haha

No, I agree with you. A little restraint with the volume is always nice. And, I am not a huge fan of the dub step either. I think my buddy, Jason said it best when we were last at the dbc, "it sounds like a printer is getting raped by a fax machine in hear".

Jon Zucco wrote: haha No, I agree with you. A little restraint with the volume is always nice. And, I am not a huge fan of the dub step either. I think my buddy, Jason said it best when we were last at the dbc, "it sounds like a printer is getting raped by a fax machine in hear".

Yeah, the gym I was referring to was the DBC. As much as I love that place (really an amazing little gym), the noise there sometimes makes my ears want to bleed. It seems like a lot of gym music is of the "amp-up" variety; loud music to get one's pulse up. I really don't understand the place of that with climbing. Climbing itself amps me up plenty, and if anything the struggle is not getting amped up, but rather keeping the pulse down, staying quiet and collected. Combining climbing with dubstep, techno, etc. just seems to lead to tachycardia, which to me seems altogether an unpleasant thing.

Liberty wrote: Woodchuck, the other day two old timers like yourself butted in front of me trying to lead this 10b cos one of them wanted to "really quickly" do this 12 c....he was probably working for years...what happened to ladies first and beauty before age? No wonder women dont wanna talk to the snotty non,polite old timers...

Glad that's not me.....I like to work within gym courtesy rules all the time. No more old guy bashing please! Don't generalize...

jarthur wrote:Advanced: My last count was 72 gyms including 1 in Japan that I've visited in the past 6 years. I travel a lot for work and indoorclimbing.com is an awesome resource. I look for a few things to help judge how I feel about a gym: Overall Gym Quality, Quality of bouldering, Quality of routes, Attitudes of owners/workers, Attitudes of climbers, and Cost. I've been to some of the smallest/dumpiest gyms in the US and they'll try to charge $18 for a day pass. The best gyms that have stood out for me were: The new Hoosier Heights in Northern Indiana (possibly the best gym in the US in my opinion), Planet Granite in San Fran, & Planet Rocks in Michigan. Hoosier Heights had everything I'd ever want to climb and it's still growing. Plenty of routes, lots of varied bouldering, a traverse boulder, lots of training equipment (two HIT boards and two system boards), a speed wall, and the best feature of all was the Snake! This feature was so crazy and unique I couldn't stop talking about it when I got home. The employees that I met and the climbers were super friendly and the climbing shop had everything you'd ever need.

Hoosier Heights is southern IN

Jon Frisby wrote: Hoosier Heights is southern IN

They opened a new location in Indianapolis. Still not northern, but also not southern.

DBC plays some of the worst music I've ever heard. Someone there is always playing this horrible combination of dub step and misogynistic rapping that makes me want to freak out.

wyomingsean wrote:DBC plays some of the worst music I've ever heard. Someone there is always playing this horrible combination of dub step and misogynistic rapping that makes me want to freak out.

Ok, so no "dub step" in gym. Got it! Thanks!

They need to quit playing that same mother !@#$#@! playlist every god !@#$#@ !@#%$ !@#$%!$#% !@#$%$.

Jon Zucco wrote:Please tell me this is market research for a new ropes gym in the Denver metro area. :)

Rumors are there are 2 or 3 in the plans. Rumors are 1 just south of downtown Denver, 1 out by Golden and 1 in Co Springs. My running joke has always been to build one at the base of Cactus Cliff for those 5 days a year that Shelf Road is unclimbable!

I've suggested that perhaps there should be a forum section just for indoor climbing.

Indoor climbing will be here longer than it takes to replace all the 1/4" iron angles out there! :D

Take it or leave it...

Mike Crandall wrote: Rumors are there are 2 or 3 in the plans. Rumors are 1 just south of downtown Denver, 1 out by Golden and 1 in Co Springs.

I don't know anything about the one in the Springs, but the Golden one has a fall opening date & the Denver one has an address. Rumor has it another front range gym is looking for an expansion though.

reboot wrote: I don't know anything about the one in the Springs, but the Golden one has a fall opening date & the Denver one has an address. Rumor has it another front range gym is looking for an expansion though.

Thanks for that! (do you know if they'll be playing dub step?) :P

I know of Earth Trex in Golden and a rumor that Movement is looking to open a Denver Location. As far as the Colorado Springs Location, I am the (soon-to-be) owner of it. Pure Bouldering Gym will be (as the name suggests!) a bouldering only gym. We are planning on the grand opening to be sometime in July/early August. Check us out on FB if you are interested. www.facebook.com/purebouldering