UKC

Hiya

Long term lurker; first time poster.

Looking for a new wall in the east mids area. I currently climb at The Depot in Nottingham but the route setting there is just awful these days.

Have a car so willing to travel for interesting problems and minimal parkour stuff.

Sheffield's a bit far out, unfortunately.

Try the Climbing Unit in Derby or the Climbing Station in Loughborough. Not sure what your beef is with the Depot though. Problem setting seems great to me and my pals and we climb the full range between us (the other two walls are just as good though). The only setting problem I'm aware of is the current lack of grade overlap between black and red/wood that used to help progression a bit better.

https://theclimbingunit.com

https://theclimbingstation.com

Cheers!

I guess my issue with the depot is down to personal style, but they're setting fewer routes each time and too many of them are jumps/dynos. Low percentage, high impact moves that look good on instagram.

They've stopped doing woods, which were a big help to progression and the grade consistency is way off.

I'm a big fan of the place but it's noticeably worse over the last 6 months or so. I have two friends who've stopped bouldering because of it 😣. They do sport at NCC instead.

Climbing Unit looks good and easy to get to, will try there on Monday. Thanks!

I doubt you will be dissapointed:  all three walls are all up with the best in the UK in my view. I really liked Depot woods so will also miss them, more importantly they seemed to be more popular with female climbers than the reds... so I'm hoping customer feedback will lead them to reconsider.

I've been vocal about the Depot grade labels on the colour ranges as they are complete nonsense until you get well into the reds. On the current blacks nearly all are below V2 with only a handful of the harder problems at that grade and only the dyno seems harder.  The range is supposed to start there! Reds have got much harder in the last year. In the current set there was an arete V2 that was made harder by a new blue hold blocking the best bit of the arete and a juggy tough V2 on the bin but most now seem to fit in the advertised range. However as someone  said on another thread this now leaves a progression gap, in comparison to when we once had easier woods and easier reds overlapping with black. On the plus side all the setting seems excellent... even the dynos....some people like dynos and there are not so many of them.

There's five dynos in the new purples this week, if you could the weird cartwheel on the slab, which I consider a dynamic move.

I thought the blacks were interesting routes but far too easy. The reds were ok with two that were pushing past V5 in my humble. The last pinks were really bad - 13 was harder than 20, 16 was harder than 23, etc. which I think shows how messed up the grading is.

It's really hard to track progress when the grading is so poor.

I'm close on pink 13 and 17, nowhere on 20,  16 is brutal delicacy...probably out of my league with my old body; flashed everything else below 16. 

All the problems in double figures always seem amazing to me in setting quality terms. The number order in the comps never exactly matched increasing grade, since the wall opened... I nearly always fail a low teen and get at least one low twenties. I always saw this as good as it encourages exploration above the first problems you fail on, rather than just assuming you have hit your grade limit.

Social climbing in Leicester is pretty good too. Parking can work out expensive though

Another vote for the Climbing Unit in Derby. Really excellent route setting, and a reasonable overlap between colour circuits, plus a really good black circuit with a topo which covers a lot of the grades. This wall seems to set climbing rather than comp style routes which suits me well. 

Small details, lots of free parking, reasonably easy to get to outside rush hour, very nice people running it who are interested in a conversation about their routes and setting, really big roof, woody etc. Recommended.

Nice one, cheers. Will check it out on Monday.

I'd second recommendations for the Climbing Unit in Derby and the Climbing Station in Loughborough. Both up there with the best bouldering centres in the country, and both a mile ahead of the Depot in terms of quality of setting and grade consistency, IMHO

Thanks to all for the Climbing Unit recommendations. My boyfriend and I went last night and the difference is incredible!

Much better setting, with interesting (hard!) problems. There were Loads more routes than the Depot too. There were easily 30+ of most grades and very few of them were dynos. Compare that to 25 purples at the depot with 5 dynos in them. The routes were much more fun to explore, going round corners, through doorways, around a variety of roofs etc. Also impressed with them putting easier grades on the harder walls/roofs.

There seemed to be fewer topless men talking VERY LOUDLY about their grade, which is always a plus.

The Unit is where you want to go...

FTFY It's really hard to track progress when your ability is diminishing...

No doubt it's great when the grading gets soft - don't get disheartened by such nonsense.  If you really want to be disappointed try the Depot in Birmingham - there is a good whole grade difference for the same nominal circuits.

I've not sure if you're suggesting my ability is diminishing but that seems rude if so.

It's not an issue with difficulty, I like difficult climbs and mention above that some depot routes are too soft - none of the last black set come close to V4. 

I'm not looking for easy climbs to give me a false sense of progression. My issues are with the quality of setting and grading. I want to work hard, enjoy climbing (not jumping) interesting problems and see where I'm improving (and where I'm not).

The black dyno could easily be a soft V4. 

Yeah, that's a big jump.

The Climbing Unit is very good. But so too is the Climbing Station in Loughborough. I think the style is very different, with Loughborough having more techy vertical climbing. I think the best option is to mix it up and visit all three. We really are lucky in this area.

FWIW, that cartwheel is a lunge, but your foot stays on at all times. It's actually quite technical, having to get some momentum without taking any weight off your left foot.

But yeah, the purple set was rather short this month and then they took part of it down to set for the BMC youth comp barely 5 days in, leaving even fewer problems.