UKC

I'm looking at making a home training board, primarily to become stronger for UK trad climbing. For context, the ceiling of the building is 2.8 metres high and the boards will be about 6m wide.

Hopefully the fine people of UKC can help me out with a couple of questions:

If you have 2 boards opposite each other, how big a gap between them should there be at the top to avoid you essentially hitting the other wall with your head as you reach the top? (There isn't a need for it to be wide enough for two people to climb on opposite boards at the same time)

The eternal question of angles! I'm thinking about a 40 or 45 degree steep wall because I've always been terrible at steep climbing but obviously hard UK trad is mostly vertical to slightly overhanging on small crappy holds. What angle is best to train for this?

If it's too steep then suddenly I'm not maximising finger strength training but if it's not steep enough I'm probably not able to train well for massive endurance because recovery is too easy.

I  thought about this and figured 15-20 degrees would be best for trad. I have a moonboard at 25 that I can shift to 40 if I want, but 25 is more than enough! And opposite I have a 15 degree board. The space between the two on the floor is about 4m.

I'm looking into having a board built about 2.5m high and 6m wide and have chosen a 50/50 split of 30 and 40 degrees. I don't see anything less than 30 being useful. I'd like to hear opinions also though.

I built a Moonboard-sized board and figured that at that size I had to go 45 to get the sort of levels of overload I need. Now with a six metre wide board, I'd imagine you can do circuits on small holds, so something around 30 would probably work.

I was on my friend's board last night. Its at about 20 and felt friendly. I'd happily go to 30 as a sweet spot. 

Much more than that and you either have to already be exceptionally strong or use large holds which end up training your abs more than your fingers. Depends what you're training for I guess.

He had mad it variable so could go all the way to 50 degrees if he so wished. 

Top tip... Buy footholds. Feet follows is often rubbish or too easy. 

UK trad, that's why a significant part of the training has to be boning down for ever on crappy crimps to get strong fingers and endurance for the same. For every burly roof or steep overhang in the E1 to E7 range I would guess there are about a dozen other routes that are 10 degrees either side of vertical that just need crimping strength and endurance (in any event, that's historically been my forte and what I'll likely be trying to get in shape for).

In reply to Pete Dangerous and Alkis:

I just realised that I didn't make it clear that I would have a 40 to 45 degree board to train on the steep and also another board and it's principally this other board for training crimp strength and endurance that I am wondering about the angle for.

What are you guys mainly training for with the angles you use?

I had initially thought that 10 to 20 degrees was likely a good idea but very keen to see what others think.

Can you tell me what the space is between the two at the top? (I don't know how tall they are so I can't calculate that).

I have the 15 on one side, the 25 on the other (with problems on it up to 7C) and in the back wall a vertical wall. Moving around from vert to 15 and back to 25 etc is quite good for endurance (check Dave Macleod’s videos)

I've had boards on my garage for 5 years and mostly climb routes - I've found with if you have plenty of width but not super high you are better off having 25-35 degrees and mostly setting circuits.

My current board is 6m wide and has 30,36,28 degree sections which works really well. I can set hard boulders and routes.

Don't go too steep or you will find you won't be able to hang onto anything ! my first board was 30 and I found it very hard initially !

https://i.ibb.co/PwXCh8n/climbingwall.jpg

I can't say for sure but it looks like 1.5m. It's built so the moonboard can fold to the floor (or rather so I could build it on the floor and raise it up). I still need to put some boards up on  the ceiling bit. Might have to lower the moonboard so I can stand on it

I’ve had home walls for the last 15 years, and my current one for about 6. It’s in a two storey double garage with the upper floor taken out, so 3.6 metre board height. I mostly boulder and clip bolts on holiday, unless soloing grit routes counts as trad. 
I’ve a 20 degree symmetrical board, 32 degree random set, 52 degree roof and a 20 degree campus board. Pretty well all wooden screw ons now, separate wooden footholds.

All except the 52 gets used equally. I started with larger holds on the 20, then migrated them to the 32 as I got stronger and replaced them with small crimps, pinches and slopers. Making the footholds progressively worse as you get stronger is also key. Hardwoodholds  have domes which you can rotate from good to bad. Typically, I don’t reset the wall unless it gets really loppy and needs a paint. I’ve found actual route setting to be a waste of time, but favourite problems do emerge, and I take a photo of the holds, print it out and mark it up. Holds just migrate round to steeper boards.

A metre gap between steep opposing walls at the top seems to work ok and leaves room to fit led floodlights.

Mine is 20, as I have virtually zero interest in anything much steeper. Its really easy to make hard problems on...IF you make sure you buy ratty holds. Plenty about! (And that includes feet, get good specific holds and make sure they're utterly awful). 

Far more benficial for UK trad (and a lot of sport!) IMO than 40/50 degree jug fests. There is a lot to be said for training specificity in my book.

I made mine at 40 degrees. It's way to steep, can't warm up on it easily, so I never really use it. If I was doing it again, id do 20 - max 30.