I’m a member of a small climbing club which runs its own bouldering gym. I’ve recently come to be in charge of organizing our quarterly route setting days and could really use some advice from the routesetters collective brain. We usually allow all club members to participate in the setting days, it’s a really popular event b/c of the social aspects and even the novice climbers seem to really enjoy setting problems.
However fun it is to have an active community, the quality of a lot the stuff being put up is “not great”. My plan is to write a leaflet to be handed out during the next setting day, topics including e.g. setting with safety in mind, selecting the right type bolt...
What would you guys put in there - in terms of concrete advice?
*EDIT: spelling*
Advice for novice setters
(7 posts) (7 voices)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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By no means am I am expert, but one of the best things for beginners to learn is that you can really change the difficulty of a climb just by rotating holds. Another thing that would be helpful to pass in relation to foot holds is that if it feels like one should be in a particular spot, it probably should be.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I've found it works well to first teach them to set their routes efficiently and quickly, and then do modifications and tweaks on the route afterward.
Too often new setters have been dreaming for so long of setting a few certain specific moves, that they get stuck trying to make it just right... only for it to be skipped through in unintended sequences.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Let them know that you are the final word on what stays, i.e. if something is dangerous, or too tweaky (in your estimation) you WILL make edits. It helps to remind them that plastic is not permanent: good or garbage, it all winds up in the dishwasher.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Editing people's routes is actually a great way to teach them how to set. I think if you leave the basic structure of a route up (holds still in the same place, direction and movement roughly the same) the original setter will feel like its still thier route. Rotating holds (great idea!) or swaping holds out to improve the route will teach the original setter a lot. One of the problems novice setters (and experienced setters too) have is the inability to concieve of doing the route differently. Swapping or rotating holds to limit the variations on a route will open the eyes of a novice setter and give them a new set of tricks the next time they set.
At the very least, you will have a bunch of new holds up on the wall and this will eventually lead to new, cool routes
Posted 1 year ago # -
When our volunteer setters set a route I usually have some climbers who are various sizes and abilities climb the route as they watch. You don't get great feed back from a 5.12 climber on the feel of a 5.8 but someone struggling at that level will reveal the awkwardness or reachy aspects without it always having to come from the head setter.
I also try and get new setters in when experienced people are setting so they can watch how to be efficient and organised.
When in doubt yell and use sarcasm...
Cranky
Posted 1 year ago # -
often i think the best advice to give a novice setter is to dumb things down a bit when they set. this might be misleading at first, but many beginning route setters try to set so far into their own styles of setting that they exclude the majority of gym climbers from enjoying their routes simply because their routes become inaccessible unless the climber shares the same sense of movement. in my experience many first time setters like to set things they think are the epitomy of cool when really they are contrived and awkward for the majority of the user group. by dumbing things down a bit they actually make their routes more accessible to the general community and end up with a better final product
Posted 1 year ago #
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