Mutant Hangboard

Hey there, cowboys. This isn't a post about the progress of my wall (big update on that soon), but about what's happened with a marginally older friend. Remember this thing?

Credit to the Wayback Machine (not really)

I do! It's hard to forget, because it's still in my spare room and it takes up a lot of room. If you'll remember, Kuraimu had its humble beginnings as this thing, before I decided to build a proper monster in the garage and relegate this frame to hangboard status. So what's happening with it now?

Pay no attention to the dust

Well, for starters, it hasn't got any holds any more. I put up some campus rungs- low, but I'm not good enough to campus properly anyway, so they are mostly used for hanging and very static moves. It works out alright. The towel on top is for grabbing the edge to do pull ups- it's more stable than it looks.

But wait! What's that futon doing behind the frame? What's going on back there?

I love exposed screws

Oh, a hangboard. This frame serves double duty!

Fire detector for when my workouts get too hot

The board is a Metolius Contact board, a real beast of a hangboard that has been reviewed elsewhere. This thing has more than enough on it to keep me busy for a long while.

Now, originally, I had planned on using the existing board as a home made hangboard by filling it with T-nuts and placing holds. I eventually relented and purchased the Contact for a few reasons:

1. I keep using all of my holds on the actual climbing wall. To really get the training potential of a proper hangboard, I'd need several matched sets of different holds; this runs up to costing more than just buying the real thing.
2. I can make rails and pockets to hang on, but recreating the varying depths of the pockets and slots of the Contact would be a lot of work
3. I like spending money

So I bought the Contact. So far I'm happy with the decision- this thing allows for regimented and controlled training in a whole new way. This sort of training, by the way, is why I even wanted a hangboard in the first place. Many people view hangboards as a sort of stopgap solution to training without a wall, something that I have. And I while I do hope to use my garage wall to get stronger and increase my weekly climbing hours, the hangboard really allows for measured and controlled progress in strength in a way that simply climbing doesn't.

Anyway, moving on, you might have noticed the ropes in the previous pictures. I'm a weak climber, so I need help to hang by my fingers.

Enter the pulley system! Reducing weight allows me to get in 8-10 second hangs on holds I otherwise wouldn't be able to use. It's a simple but effective system.

Shout out to Fighting Road, The Only Choice (unfortunately)

Weight goes on one end of each rope, via a bolt and washer.

Crossloading! Yer gonna die!

I go on the other. 

Repping my gym

Hangs result! The idea will be to continually train using decreasing amounts of weight over time until I can hang unassisted from the target holds. My current big goal is to hang on the deepest two-finger pockets with my middle two fingers for ten seconds. Right now, doing it with 15 kg taken off is a challenge, so I either need to train hard or eat a lot less. The answer here is obvious.

Anyway, that's what's up with my indoor training apparatus. It doesn't have a name anymore. I'm sorry, Indoor Training Apparatus. Would it help if I capitalized?

Stay tuned for more on the progress of Kuraimu proper, as well as more hold reviews- I just got a big box of Metolius goodies. Stay chilly fresh proper my droogs. I wish it would stop raining.

Just hanging around

Hey ya'll, just a miscellaneous update and assorted picture dump. In preparing to assemble my wall, I've had to consider which holds will be usable on the horizontal roof section, and make sure enough I have enough good jugs to make it climbable. What I realized was that I can test this out myself on my adjustable hangboard-thing, Kuraimu V2. It can go nearly horizontal, but I've somehow never tested it. Hold testing proceeded:

Hmm, yes. I see.

And, as things do, quickly escalated:

The first version of this picture had visible panties. Yowza!

End conclusion: A lot of the holds I ended up with are usable even at a totally horizontal angle, but require careful movement and thoughtful feet to avoid coming off. Very few of my holds, as it turn out, are the sort of bomber roof jugs that guys in toques like to do pull-ups on.

I do have a package coming in from Element containing a few good jugs that I hope should add options. Once those come I want to take a big shot of all my holds in a group- probably the last chance I'll have to do it!

Speaking of Element holds, I want to mention-

Element has some sweet customer service!

Element offers free shipping over a certain amount, like most hold companies. In putting together my latest order I sent an email asking if there was any amount I could spend that would result in free shipping- you never know. I got a very prompt response from a sales rep who told me that the free shipping was for U.S. addresses only, but that he could give me a discount code worth half of the hefty Japan shipping cost. Totally unexpected and cool! Along with the sale on large-size holds I got a sweet deal. And of course, the Element holds I have so far are high quality and I expect no less from the next set. Great experience!

Last, I want to show off this sweet mug I got from my lovely climbing friend:

The hold isn't any better than it looks

Hand-made and one-of-a-kind! Now everyone at my office will know that I'm a climber! I mean, they already knew since I talk about it incessantly, but now there's extra evidence.

Stay tuned for some pics of the framework currently making my garage unusable.

Kuraimu V1, V2, and V3

So the current project- building a bouldering cave in my garage, possibly dying- is called Kuraimu, a name I explained in my previous post. Technically, however, it's Kuraimu V4, which has nothing to do with bouldering grades and everything to do with the fact that I'm a nerd and like naming things. So what were Kuraimus V1-3? Stay tuned.

I first decided that I wanted a way to work on my bouldering at home in November of 2013 or so. The obvious option for home training, of course, is a hangboard:

I chose not to go this route for two reasons:

- I don't own my house and so am hesitant to drive screws into the walls, and

- I like making things.

So I made a thing:

Terrifying, isn't it? That's a small-size sheet of plywood with a few holds drilled into it, fixed to a freestanding pullup bar with wires. This was Kuraimu V1, although I didn't give it a name at the time because it wasn't the sort of thing you refer to as anything other than "That horrible thing taking up floorspace in the spare room." It was good for hanging on and working on grips- I did add more holds- but I wanted more. More.

So I designed this:

A freestanding wooden frame for the thing. This would function in essentially the same way as the V1 version, but would (in theory) be much less janky. Plus I could throw in a full-height pullup bar while I was at it. That turned into this:

Neat! This actually worked pretty well and yes, I did tape "routes" onto it. I'm sorry. This thing turned out to be quite stable, despite screwing up the design- see if you can spot where I nailed something into the wrong place. This thing was solid, and the adjustable angle worked well. The old futon set below it also turned out to work pretty well.

On the downside, the feet resting on the floor made things quite different. When going for a hold, it became possible to to really adjust body positioning and get your weight under even the shittiest crimp, making it easier. Not exactly realistic, but still good for training as long as you had discipline, I suppose. I eventually added a crossbar at the far end of the floor supports, supplying something to push against with the feet.

It was at this point that I came up with the name Kuraimu, being stoked as hell about having Made A Thing. I christened it Kuraimu V2, using the V2 designation to differentiate it from the larval form.

The biggest result of building this mock hangboard, however, was that I decided that I did want to go ahead and try for a full-sized wall. I enjoyed the construction process and the product was solid, and I had already invested in a lot of the tools that would be necessary. As a final test-run, however, I produced this:

Kuraimu V3! This is the same frame, but with a full-sized sheet of plywood attached. This is the same sort of thing I'd make a full wall out of, and in fact the panel will eventually be used in the final result. Drilling and placing T-Nuts in this wall did give me an idea of how much work a real wall would be, but I still decided to go ahead.

In the meantime, I'm having fun with this thing. The wall is stable at a very slight overhang, and provides an interesting and fairly realistic climbing experience. One issue I failed to predict was that any kind of sideways movement is risky; the wall wobbles side to side, and if you fall off to either side you'll fall right into the supports. So I can't do anything that isn't very static, but that's probably a good thing in any case. 

Hooray for climbing!

So anyway, there you have it: the Kuraimu family tree. Once the final wall starts coming together I'll remove the panel and put the "hangboard" back on to use as simple hanging practice. Until then, Kuraimu V3 serves as The Jankiest Climbing Wall in Japan. Free admission!