UKC

So once this is all over, some friends and I are looking to make the leap from indoor walls to doing some sport climbing - while I have some time, I was thinking of building an anchor set up to practice lowering/stripping the route but in a safe environment (on the ground instead of suspended 20m in the air).

Does anybody have any experience of doing something similar? What would I need and the best way to do it?

Any tips welcome

A couple of bolts, some tat and a couple of rings will see you right for threading the anchor

I did a video recently about cleaning sport routes - if you click the link you'll see the little board I created that I use for working at sport crags and teaching this sort of thing. I would evolve it a little bit if I was doing it again, but they work well.

youtube.com/watch?v=EjDNpYw4l34&

You could do worse than rig some slings round trees or over the fence in the garden, and walk it through comprehensively from start to finish on the flat as if going from ground to lower off to ground.

Or do it on a steep slope in a forest.

All you need is two things to fix yourself to - two slings with krabs over a branch, or looped over a rung of a ladder. All you need to be able to do is take your weight off them to simulate your belayer taking the strain

Get your partner to hold their hands in front of them, ask them to touch their forefingers and thumbs together.  Talk through what you're doing to your partner whilst you're doing it.  Make sure you've got it learnt.  That's enough to get the basic sequence sorted in your head. 

After that you need to start getting ready to think when you get up there and find all sorts of weird and wonderful arrangements of chains, staples, rings, in situ carabiners.... 

If you're solid on the basics and know what you're doing to keep yourself safe (including making sure you're never on just one bolt) then you'll not panic when you get up there and find something weird.

My big tip is there are a million different ways and methods of doing this, and people can and will argue it all day long, just find the way that suits you and make sure you've got that locked in in your head.  It doesn't matter if other people do it differently, just do what works for you.

Staircase with banister. You can use the banister posts as intermediate"pegs" with quick draws, and use a couple of slings with malions/krabs as the "chain" anchor around the top newel post.

No need to put your full weight onto the newel post if uncertain of its's strength, just enough to provide tension whilst you practice

The faff of threading the top bolts is one of the most counter-intuitive and complicated things I think I've ever done climbing wise, it felt precarious to me.

It really shouldn't. Its perfectly possible to go hands free at the belay and then thread the rings with a bight, clip back into the rope and then untie without your belayer taking you off once. If it feels counterintuitive or complicated you're probably doing it wrong.

It does look straight forward in black & white but when your're 25M up and putting it into practice for the first time, the sequence is suddenly unacademic! I think the OP has hit on something, how do you safely simulate the process?

The first time I climbed on bolts I was completely unaware I would have to do this. My first 2 routes had karabiners at the lower off, no problem there.  The third one just had rings. I had to work it out for myself.

Make sure you're secured to the anchor.

Make sure you can't drop the rope, it must remain attached to you at all times

Double check everything. Then check again.

The belayer must keep you on belay.

It's better to understand the principles rather than rely on a mechanistic approach, then you'll be able to deal with a setup which doesn't match what you've practiced.

A couple of krabs on slings can be used to mimic a typical setup, it doesn't really matter what you attach these to.

First time I did this I had a friend go through the process the night before. Used a couple of slings with carabiners hanging off a chair. 
 

The following day when I did this on rock, I had the same friend belay me. When I got to clearing the anchor I then relayed every process I was going through, so that he could check/assure me I was doing it correctly. I felt much better having someone there that knew exactly what they were doing the first few times.

The key thing to watch for is "under no circumstances should you ever be protected by fewer than 2 bolts, and this should be checked before and after you make any change to the system".  If you're strict on that you won't come to grief even if it takes you ages the first time you actually do it.

Sometimes the bolt is too narrow for a bight so it's worth learning both ways even if the "untie, rethread, retie" version feels horribly wrong.

First time I actually did it properly was on one of the lead routes at Big Rock, when they opened they had a couple with no screwgate at the top, you used your own and the last person threaded it.  Don't know why that was the case (possibly they designed it for some routes to always be top-rope and some always lead then changed their mind?) but it has since been fixed.