Anyone ever boulder at a gym where every hold of every problem is always taped at exactly the same direction/angle, usually 45 degrees down, left or right? I guess the argument is that it looks nice/professional, but something else that's nice is being able to see the tape when you're looking at a hold from the angle you would while climbing, something that doesn't always happen if every single piece is standardized to the same direction. Plus I don't even think it looks good... like some setting robot went and filled in the wall instead of creative, hardworking people.
Uni-directional tape
(14 posts) (10 voices)-
Posted 6 months ago #
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We've been doing this for over a year now. I believe it does add nice look to the walls. The harder things is getting a. the setters to all tape the same, and b. not have climber's step on tape. The climbers smear the tape no matter where it is (bad footwork). I think "creative hardworking people" should take pride in their work. The place where I see most setters fall short in the commercial setting is in the details. Taping sloppy, writing ratings even sloppier, etc. So, we went to standardized route tags and tape in the same direction. People noticed and the gym as a whole looks better for it.
Luke
Posted 6 months ago # -
I agree. A good presentation not only looks nice, but it also shows the person cares about what they create.
I like to tape mostly at a s.west or s.east angle, and occasionally straight down for smaller low profile footholds. Which way... depends on where the climber is... so they'll see it best (feet and hands) and of course where it won't be rolled off with sloppy footwork.
It seems the majority of climbers don't like falling off of something they expect not to, and especially because of a missing or hidden hold.
Posted 6 months ago # -
I grew up climbing at a gym that was religious about this. All tape was always set facing the same direction at the same angle and was usually always the same length. When I would set, I did find it to be a pain because it took more time to ensure that things were exact. At the time, I found this approach to be a little too stringent.
After visiting dozens of other gyms and seeing various approaches to taping, I definitely have to side with the regimented and organized taping. Some gyms were extremely hard to follow routes because of the crisscrossing tape, dozens of routes crammed together, and overall inability to find the line. Some places had tape pieces that were upwards of 3-4 feet long! Needless to say, that particular wall looked awful!
At the end of the day it felt like the structured taping was a pain in the ass for the setter, but from the climbers standpoint it was much easier to make sense of all the chaos!
Posted 6 months ago # -
... which brings up the other question then .. how long does it take you to properly tape a 50' route? ...
Posted 6 months ago # -
I'd be happy to tape everything at a standard angle/location, but it won't work on our walls. We've got randomly placed T-nuts, so you have to work to avoid taping over them. The one thing I find totally unacceptable is either taping above the hold or crossing over the tape for other routes.
Posted 6 months ago # -
I will agree that the standardized way is a lot better than setters being careless; I've seen a few gyms where problems were nearly incomprehensible thanks to sloppy taping. I'm definitely OCD about how our tape looks/functions (no crosstaping, no tape above holds, no ridiculously long or short pieces, etc.), but for some reason the "parallel matrix" look I've seen in a couple gyms bothers me. I've actually never seen routes taped like this, just bouldering areas. And as for sloppy footwork destroying tape, I have tried everything- angling it away from where feet will be desperately smearing, jamming part of the tape underneath the hold, even a staple or two for really important problems. Oh well, I guess I should just be happy people are having fun, and that ruined tape means our problems are seeing a lot of attention.
Posted 6 months ago # -
I have always valued quality, professional looking tape jobs that make the route easy to follow while on the wall. I agree with the others, I am totally obsessed with clean looking tape on routes (same length, pressed down firmly, no cris-cross, clean lables, etc.). With all the tape pointing the same direction it is very easy to miss a foot or a hold around a corner.
[sarcasm]
Of course, whenever someone falls off a route "because I didn't see the tape on that foot" you can always tell them that they should be doing a better job of inspecting the route before climbing. Remember...there are no bad setters, just bad climbers who don't have the skill to climb at our level.
[/sarcasm]Posted 6 months ago # -
we do this at my gym and i think it makes a huge difference. i dont find that climbers fall often because of missing holds and those that do quickly learn to read their routes better and generate better memory skills
Posted 6 months ago # -
We usually do a 4 o' clock method, but if we're co taping or near another hold making 4:00 impossible, we keep it between 6:00 and 3:00. Our clients know where to look for tape so missing holds is not a problem, and the consistent method looks much more professional. Not only does it look very professional and clients get accustomed to it, but it takes very little time to orient the tape the right way.
Also, not sure if this is common practice at other gyms, but we put the tape on underneath the hold so there's less of a chance of it getting smeared off by people's feet. And to make stripping tape easier, we tab the ends about a half inch so you can just grab on and rip it off.
Just don't be too much of a tape nazi.
Posted 6 months ago # -
We're about to implement a different marking technique at our gym, we didn't want to use tape for several reasons, (price, glue residues, takes the paint out of our walls) and it is so hard to find colors and cheaper tape in europe...
So we will use 2mm tick colored PVC strips and we screw our olds on top of them.
This makes it possible to re-use the strips over and over again. Making it more cheaper and environmentally friendly(er).
I will try to post some pictures afterFred
Posted 6 months ago # -
Hi Fred,
Sounds like a good idea. Im interested to see how this turns out. How much were you planning on having the PVC stick out from the hold? The only reason i ask is that im currently picturing holds that are on slightly curved sections of the wall where the PVC may not sit flush. This does sound like a way better idea then using standard tape though. We recently painted our walls and when it came time to do a major reset, certain brands of tape pulled entire painted sections off. Needless to say it looks hideous now!
Posted 6 months ago # -
today I started routesetting for a national boulder comp we will have this saturday, by next week we will start resetting the all wall with this method.
I will try to upload some photos of the comp and the setting work, in a few days.Fred
Posted 6 months ago # -
So Fred, you are using basically like the old stadler rulers underneath your hold? How will you get the end of the piece of PVC to stay close to the wall should someone kick it, are you going to screw that piece down too?
This is rather interesting... it would be cool if tape became a thing of the past!
Posted 6 months ago #
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