Which One?

Expanding my climbing wall soon that will include a 45 degree overhang. I am looking at buying 20-30 holds with everything from feet to a really big hold or two. Here are the companies I am deciding between. Cast your vote and reasons why I should go with them.

Thanks,
Brooks

SoIll
DRCC
Project
Climb-It
Rock Candy
Bomber
or
Voodoo

If you have a free weekend you could always go up to the twin cities and get some nicros holds...i think that you can get blems or 2nds but only at the factory. while you are at it you could always go to willow, taylors falls or the north shore and have a mini road trip. The gym that i used to work at had a bunch of holds but i liked so ill, thought they were made well and kept their texture well

I'm partial to Rock Candy. Their tufas and horizontal crack features in particular are really good, especially for a 45 degree wall as you describe.

My nicros holds just broke on me. Both holds broke while pulling on them ofcourse. One broke in half and shockingly the other pulled right over the washer and bolt. I suggest Metolius.

ccc wrote:My nicros holds just broke on me. Both holds broke while pulling on them ofcourse. One broke in half and shockingly the other pulled right over the washer and bolt. I suggest Metolius.

Most of my holds are metolius, I like them but am looking to get a little variety, not to mention how expensive they are.

Climb-It has just awesome selection of huge feature sized holds. Great bright colors too. I just tried Bomber for the first time via their ebay sales and they are nice quality too.

I’d look into what the manufacturer uses to create their holds. Some use a poly-urethane mix or poly-ethylene mix. I’ve noticed that the grip-it hold will have a more pores texture to it, however they tend to break when wrenched down to tight, especially the foot chips. We also use e-grip holds that tend to flex and contour to the shape of the climbing wall and will not break under tension. Our wall was created by Rockwerx and has natural features as well as modular hand holds. If anyone is ever in Columbus Ohio, Please come enjoy the climbing wall at Scioto Audubon Metro Park, it’s free to climb, however you need to bring your own gear.

Scioto Audubon Climbing Wall

check out 3ball.

camhead wrote:I'm partial to Rock Candy. Their tufas and horizontal crack features in particular are really good, especially for a 45 degree wall as you describe.

+1 for Rock Candy. Nate's holds are great!

Red wrote:check out 3ball.

have a few 3ball, I like them, but probably don't want to go with them as my main supply, Also, got some samples from Rock Candy and CLimb-it, both were really awesome, I am leaning toward rock candy though because of how expensive CI's shipping is...

It depends on if you are building this outside or inside. If you are going outside, a friend of mine showed me a company's holds made for outdoors and I was rather impressed. Very cheap, but look and feel like real granite (at least NC slopey polished granite). Otherwise, I highly recommend DRCC or soiLL. SoiLL provides a really great gritty texture with some great possibilities on funky holds. DRCC has probably the best craftsmanship on their holds I have ever seen and are a complete blast to set on or climb on. Not to mention Allison really takes care of the customers up there in Motown.

SoIL!!!!

My suggestion is to mix up holds from different companies as much as possible. I only own a few sets from a number of different companies and always looking for new and different holds.

From my experience here is a quick summary of a few of those companies:

Soill: Good variety, unique shapes but unless something doesn't stick out to you as awesome then wait until they do. Also they do discounts all the time on their holds (at least 25% off) so I never buy unless they are on sale.

DRCC: Insane high quality holds. Also good for a few specialized holds. Buy something from them that you cannot buy from anyone else (dual texture is key) See example below of their uniqueness (photo by me of the first set of holds I bought from DRCC):

Project: I only have a couple sets and their x-large roof jugs stand out as some of best ones I own. Great texture, great build.

Climb-it: Took them forever to fulfill my order (1.5 mos), but they have the best large features I have seen or used (Font XL Jugs are amazing roof features). Don't buy from them unless you are getting something in the XL size.

For foot holds the best deal I have seen is a Nicros deal ( nicros.com/products.cfm?Act…)"AWESOME DEAL Set of 10 Micros - MXMIX" for $16 w/o bolts. Some holds good enough for handholds. I never intentionally buy foot holds as so many companies have sent me some over the years and deals are easy to come by.

The DRCC Slots. Asked them to do some crazy colors and this is the result. Almost too pretty to climb on.

The smallest DRCC slot in the set with a carabiner for reference. The largest is a good two hand slot.

Andy Librande wrote:My suggestion is to mix up holds from different companies as much as possible. I only own a few sets from a number of different companies and always looking for new and different holds. From my experience here is a quick summary of a few of those companies: Soill: Good variety, unique shapes but unless something doesn't stick out to you as awesome then wait until they do. Also they do discounts all the time on their holds (at least 25% off) so I never buy unless they are on sale. DRCC: Insane high quality holds. Also good for a few specialized holds. Buy something from them that you cannot buy from anyone else (dual texture is key) See example below of their uniqueness: Project: I only have a couple sets and their x-large roof jugs stand out as some of best ones I own. Great texture, great build. Climb-it: Took them forever to fulfill my order (1.5 mos), but they have the best large features I have seen or used (Font XL Jugs are amazing roof features). Don't buy from them unless you are getting something in the XL size. For foot holds the best deal I have seen is a Nicros deal ( nicros.com/products.cfm?Act…)"AWESOME DEAL Set of 10 Micros - MXMIX" for $16 w/o bolts. Some holds good enough for handholds. I never intentionally buy foot holds as so many companies have sent me some over the years and deals are easy to come by.

Great info.

+1 more for Rock Candy.. Nate's holds are just plain fun..

Bomber Holds.......... www.bomberholds.com

the guy who designed the original casts lives in the area (Denverish), he sold it to the dude running it now, but homeboy (Count Chockula MP name) is cool, support his lineage.

Element, Rock Candy and SoIll for customer service alone.

ccc wrote:My nicros holds just broke on me. Both holds broke while pulling on them ofcourse. One broke in half and shockingly the other pulled right over the washer and bolt. I suggest Metolius.

There is a high probability that both of those incidents were user error related.

When a hold breaks in half, in my experience, it is usually because of over-tightening. If you crank the hold down too tightly it will cause micro-fractures that will only get worse over time culminating in the hold breaking in half.

The bolt pulling through the washer and hold is rare, but can occur for a couple of reasons. Using the wrong bolt is a quick sure fire way to mess up your hold. Over-tightening is another. The holds that I have seen pull bolts thru like that are typically hollow back, or HRT design. If you overtighten with these types of holds it is fairly easy to pull the bolt thru. Easy in a broad sense, that is. Really you must be way over-tightening your holds or using the incorrect bolts.

The third option is that you simply received two dud holds, which is certainly possible. Though I'm going to go with Occam's Razor on this and claim operator error.

AntVicino wrote: T When a hold breaks in half, in my experience, it is usually because of over-tightening. If you crank the hold down too tightly it will cause micro-fractures that will only get worse over time culminating in the hold breaking in half.

The only time I have broken a hold was due to the design of the hold. It was a deep pocket that was relatively thin and had the bolt hole on the far end of the hold. This allowed for a lot of leverage (due to deep pocket it was a solid hold on an 30 degree wall), and it snapped when pulling hard on it which surprised the hell out of me.

My only beef with Nicros holds is that all of mine are Resin and I have chipped the edges on them from being careless and dropping them into buckets. I could see how over-tightening them a lot could put the stress cracks into them since the resin is so much more brittle then the urethane ones.

One should never underestimate the importance of customer service. Way to step up, Nicros rep.

Rock candy...nates holds are awesome and from my experience he will reply super quick