UKC

Hi guys!

Looking for some inspiration, I've been route setting a little while at my local wall and I think the routes I'm putting up are pretty good. Make you think etc but without being full of trick moves.

But I want to put up a really spectacular route, one that you can't wait to do when you arrive.
Just watched this vimeo.com/13213264 and the moves at around the 3.20 minute mark look amazing, might try something like that if I can get away with it!
Other than that, what do you guys think a really good route consists of?
Got any specific moves you think are really good?
A general style?

Any and all hints welcome!

Benny

In reply to bennycattrall:

Careful about doing something as radical as that video!

It's easy for the routesetter to get in their head a really cool sequence, but the climbers end up trying a different way. After all the route doesn't come with a notice saying "please use the cool toe hook and don't match on the crimp" for example.

As for a cool route, I personally like volumes made into jamming cracks. This only tends to happen on bouldering routes, so a lead route would be cool.

In reply to bennycattrall:

There was a route at the Foundry, with only 2 holds, one at the bottom and one at the top. It was up a corner, and there was a long triangular volume running pretty much the height of the wall, slanting slightly away from the corner. So you used the hold at the bottom and a bit of smeary bridging to enter the chimney at the bottom between the volume and the corner. Then you chimneyed up, with the chimney getting wider and wider, until by the top you had, Dawes on the Quarryman style, hands in the corner and feet on the volume . It's the only indoor route I've ever done that I can remember, and it was awesome.

In reply to Daniel Heath:

I know what you mean about the move in that video, there is a high potential for injury! Not thinking anything quite as drastic as that, but certainly things as different as that.
I'm fed up of straight up uninspiring lines/ladders.

Volumes as a jamming crack sounds awesome though!

In reply to bennycattrall: The best routes I have done involve using the moulded features when they are available and do not go straight up and down but instead involve a little bit of wandering to left and right. Alternatively they making imaginative use of aretes, grooves and corners. They are also reasonably sustained at the grade with a crux that is NOT just a long reach between holds. The route should "flow" but not be only a case of left right, left right moves. These types of routes feel the nearest to outdoor climbing but there are of course some people who may not want that so you are unlikley to be able to please everyone.

In reply to bennycattrall: I enjoy anything a bit different. Big jugs for hands, nothing for feet. flat palms + arete for hands, bolt ons for feet. Up the corner facing outwards. Dyno for the top. Line of holds along the lip of the overhang either monkey baring or heel hooking along - one route going each way on this one. Blue for left hand, left foot and yellow for right hand right foot makes you think. One big hold that you have to mantle onto then stand up and fall over to get to the next hold.

There's some ideas.

In reply to bennycattrall:

I really like routes that mimic out door features: laybacks, jams etc. But also repatitive routes too. Not in terms of being a ladder, but those which focus on a type of hold or move e.g. sloper, or flagging.

In reply to bennycattrall:

red ones

In reply to bennycattrall:
I've tended to find that the most interesting or memorable indoor routes are the ones that make interesting use of changes in the angle of the wall - so big swings across corners, rockovers from overhangs onto slabs, delicate shuffles around aretes, traversing off slabs onto overhangs, bridge-and-push-fests up corners and so on all make for interesting climbing. That sort of 3D thinking is one of the things that a lot of indoor climbing misses, I think.

In reply to mmmhumous:

I like routes that replicate the sort of moves you find outside. I use indoor climbing as training for outdoors so as specific as possible is best.

Prefer sustained to cruxy. Boulder problems can be cruxy but on routes sustained is better IMO. It's also much better when the moves are hard rather than making a clip. Indoors and out, in my view if the hardest part of the route is making a clip it's not the most fun.

Generally using poor footholds is a good idea.
I like the use of tufas and volumes to change things around a bit. I like routes which make you use a specific technique - say a flag or dropknee or heelhook or a toe that makes the move work best. That's what makes a climb memorable, if it's not in a spectacular position.

In reply to bennycattrall:

The routes I really enjoy are the complex ones where you might need three foot movements and a couple of CG shifts to get to, established on then move off of a hand hold. That and routes where your weight shifts about a lot in inobvious ways, routes where the holds head straight up for example but are too poor or directional to climb like that, instead you're forced to use neighboring grooves and aretes in opposition. Routes with creative rests are good too, not just the usual bridging with your head and chest in the corner but rests involving heels, toes, calves, armbars, kneebars, aretes... anything that forces you to be creative or fit enough not to care!

That said, those are also the routes I'll be swearing at while hanging on the rope and mumbling about undergrading when I fail to flash them
jk

In reply to bennycattrall: A while ago there was a bouldering problem at my local wall that traversed one wall before transferring to another wall by a big swing on a suspended pair of rock rings, timing the release to catch the jugs on the far wall was quite a memorable move for indoors, then there was another traverse to follow and a cruxy last move that I never nailed before they reset the problems.

In reply to bennycattrall:

Cheers all. There's some really good food for thought here, going to have this thread open on my phone while I stare at the wall and see what I can come up with.

In reply to bennycattrall:

I personally enjoy the indoor routes that give you something to think about, for example not just another reachy move to reachy move, but something that gives a couple (or a few) ways of 'unlocking' a tricky sequence.

My local centres main setter seems to be stuck in the mind set of 'everyone loves dynos'. Well we do on occasion, but not on 95% of the routes. Personally i prefer a bit of creative movement on a route.

In reply to bennycattrall:

One thought that occurred to me after my last post. Unless you're a very experienced climber (when I think you may have the judgement to see that a high end move is possible), don't set moves you can't actually do.

I think it's OK for you to set a route that's at your limit, but you need at least to be able to link all the moves in together.

The worst indoor routes I've been on are where the setter is trying to be creative but then can't actually climb the moves, and can't tell you how to do them either.

In reply to bennycattrall:

I have to admit the only indoor route that ever stayed with me as being truly incredible was the epic green line at the barn a few years back.

Started up a vertical wall perpendicular to an overhang and began with large sloper at head height. There was a big starting move to a line of delicate vertical crimps, then traversed right and behind onto the steepest section of the overhang, using a line of layback crimps(which was freakishly scary to clip into, safely induced incredible rope drag, bold meant a big swing back into the wall). The route ended some three panels along up a diagonal bouldery, juggy, with-suprise-slopery gruntfest.

It was epically long for an indoor line, had a mix of everything, was scary to lead cause of the nature of swinging falls and that clips were somewhat further away than if going directly up the wall. Positively the best indoor route I've ever climbed.

In reply to victim of mathematics: I did the "chimney" route at the foundry too! 6a+ iirc which is about my limit (this was one of my first in the sixes), in fairness - id grade it slightly lower but nonetheless I really enjoyed it.

I'm not sure I've been climbing long enough to give much of a contribution but I do enjoy routes that aren't really all that hard but can't be done without really thinking about your centre of gravity and footwork - perhaps because I feel I'm learning more from that sort of route.

In reply to bennycattrall:

I wish more walls put this much effort in to thinking up new routes. My local (The Leeds Wall) is a little uninspired, went there last night and a number of routes haven't been changed since last June.

In reply to bennycattrall:
As a general rule I'd try to avoid setting routes that are vastly too hard for you. I try not to set stuff that I can't at least do all the moves on with a little work. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable setting an 8a for instance.

Trick routes with really obscure or outlandish sequences don't seem to be that popular, but often work well as boulder problems. Bat hangs and things look great but most people simply won't try them on lead and the average wall user won't spot them

Another thing to think about is making the route fit a broad range of climbers. Having a crucial knee bar designed for hobbits or NBA players won't win you any friends, can you splay the volumes to give a wide size range?

Routes with huge traverses and big swings are often great fun but not if the wall is crowded, as an example there is a lovely features only rising traverse at the end of Swindon wall; probably the nicest route I've done there but you can only do it when the wall is dead because it wipes out half a dozen rope lines!

In reply to bennycattrall:

Never been there but the above head level start on the routes in this picture looks like fun:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooklynboulders/8182576241/in/photostream

In reply to bennycattrall:
Learn from others mistakes, for instance no one wanted to climb my route which contained 4m of reachy moves off awkward and uncomfortable finger locks.

In reply to Reach>Talent:

Sounds like a great route!

In reply to Daniel Heath:
Not a bad route as such but badly targetted, there are only 2 "regular" outdoor climbers that use the wall and the other one doesn't like cracks! On the plus side I found out the lack of interest in cracks before I'd made the 7m long finger crack I was planning. We've also got a tendency to buy horrific slopers which half of the walls users won't touch!

In reply to RockSteady:


^This