UKC

According to their Facebook and Insta feeds, the new Depot bouldering centre in Sheffield is opening tomorrow (Sunday) at 9.00 am.

for once I’ve been praying for rain, but it looks like we’ll be outside tomorrow and going over for a couple of sessions midweek. Would be interesting to hear from people who make the opening tomorrow.

the photos of the system and circuit boards look excellent, really useful opening times, and memberships can be used at all their centres. Would be interesting to know how many walls that Sheffield could support? I predict this one will be a success

Mod edit: Checkout the Depot's Directory page

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

About bloody time!

I'm sure you're right, and I have no doubt the Works will continue to be a success as well. 

In reply to paul_in_cumbria: This is excellent news, also surprised to find it will be my nearest wall from Grenoside!  Really looking forward to getting to grips with the circuit boards

In reply to deepsoup:

Oh yes...I wasn’t doubting The Works! I was wondering if this will satisfy demand? 

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

You sure that's true? And if so can I get I Sheffield for free if I'm a member of one of their other centres (nottingham in my case). Because this is a big bonus for me if so because I work in Sheffield but live in notts. Being able to use both would be grand.

In reply to snoop6060:

It's a new deal they've just started promoting. They said their pass is now 'global'.

Give me a shout because if its quieter than the works it'll be my main wall. 

In reply to snoop6060:

https://www.theclimbingdepot.co.uk/sheffield/about/opening-times-prices

All pre-paid options available at all centres.

In reply to snoop6060:

I joined in Nottingham, then used the same membership to buy a 10 entry pass in Manchester which I have used it in Birmingham with no issues. So it looks like they have a common database across all their centres

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

I was there for the opening this morning (had a couple of hours free before family stuff).  I was very impressed.  Very well set problems, nice facilities and excellent circuit boards and training facilities.  This will now be my default bouldering wall.  The holds are all new so a little rough on the skin.

In reply to kevin stephens:

How big is it compared to The Works Kevin, and was it busy? 

In reply to deacondeacon:

It seemed to me to be bigger, not too busy 

In reply to kevin stephens:

Good stuff, I can see it being my new local too.  

In reply to the thread:

Can a local advise on how to get there from the central train station?  

Presumably tram (hop on at Sheffield station, blue or purple line? Change at Fitzalan Square, then to Nunnery Square?)

Then how does one get from Nunnery Square tram stop  to the Depot? That's not entirely obvious from Google maps.

[One might think that this stuff should be on the Depot website, but currently the directions under "Sheffield" are for the Manchester Depot.   https://www.theclimbingdepot.co.uk/sheffield/contact ]

In reply to kevin stephens:

Looking forward to the Circuit / System boards since The Works seems to have made such a dogs dinner of theirs ;-(  The location is not particularly convenient for me but it may be a price worth paying for a good circuit board.

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

The Birmingham one opened about 18 months ago. On reflection:

Excellent training facilities - largely empty but I imagine that won’t be the case in Sheffield. I mostly go there for the massive, stamina sapping circuit boards.

A lot of comp style problems, which is mostly due to the type of holds they have. I don’t mind weird blobby things but there are too many of them. To be fair, there are normal holds as well but the setting style seems to be comp oriented even in the mid grade circuits. Not exclusively so of course.

The bouldering is rammed. Where did all these people come from?!

They don’t reset often enough.

They don’t have / allow brushes on broom handles so it’s hard or impossible to clean out of reach holds.

As a result of the above three factors, the holds get cakes in greasy chalk, from the easiest to the mid grade circuits. The top two circuits aren’t too bad but they’re out of reach for punters like me (hence they aren’t too bad). They really need to sort this out - it’s unpleasant and unsafe because some footholds get so slippery.

The bouldering seems to be a bit higher than elsewhere (probably not much in it, may be half a metre) and there are some impressive overhangs. Which is great but because it’s such a huge floorplate, the problems are fairly spread out and this means that often there are no easy juggy problems within reach to downclimb, so jumping off is sometimes the only way.

Overall, it’s good to have a large bouldering wall to supplement what we already have but I mostly go there for the circuit boards and sometimes the comps. For pure bouldering I actually think the much small Birmingham Bouldering Centre is much better.

In reply to Misha:

Nice to know but neither works or foundry are reset often. The works in particular is poor at this. However I turned up at the Sheffield one today . Creative route setting as you'd expect from Dave barrans and all. Routes are spaced apart enough to give you room to move, unlike the works, and there is plenty of mat space so the landing zones aren't full of people. Having visited walls around the country I'd say it's only behind the depot in Leeds because it slightly lacks the number of corners. It seems a good place to go to get good plus the gym is well equipped. I'm probably going to be heading there more to be honest but will keep going to the foundry for roped climbing as I have never found good vibes at awesome walls.

In reply to kevin stephens:

Hi Kevin.  What's the situation with parking there?

I'll be checking it out after work one night this week.

In reply to JohnBson:

Routes being spaced, and sufficient mat room are big positives. Trying to get in to do something in front of a group who’ve taken ownership of a section of wall, along with overcrowding is starting to get old. However, I have visited some walls in London and realised it’s not so grim up north.

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

I went yesterday and thought it was great. The sense of space and light and not having people wandering around underneath me was refreshing. The supporting facilities were also great; loads of lockers and cubby hole storage, changing rooms separate to the toilets, a large gym and training area (the gym requires signing up at reception and no one was using it). The shop and café also looked good.

The problems were interesting and good fun with more sloping and directional holds rather than crimp fests. Each colour/ difficulty level seemed to have a rock type theme. The blacks seemed gritstone inspired with faux wind weathered shapes and occasional angular pebbles. The reds were clearly font inspired with harsh slopers and tortoise-shell pattern. I like the novelty of the themes but wonder if it could get repetitive when trying many problems at the same difficulty. I found the new, rough holds quite uncomfortable and ended up getting painful 'font tips'. I also found the slopers harder to hold than the ones at the works, maybe because my skin was irritated.

I thought the very prescriptive starts were a bit daft. There would often be a logical start to a problem and then a matched-hands start indicated to the side. This was often the crux, needing weird body positioning to use the first footholds.

There was lots of parking available but it did fill up by about 12 and people started parking along the small side road in front of the hydroponics place which made getting out tight. I would get the tram but for me that would mean a connecting bus and over an hour travelling vs less than 20 minutes in the car.

In reply to Misha:

Lol! Good practice for uk outdoor climbing i say. Some new holds these days are completely smooth to simulate this.

In reply to Misha:

"They don’t have / allow brushes on broom handles so it’s hard or impossible to clean out of reach holds."

is there a reason for this or is it that they just don't want them ? did they all get stolen !

In reply to Removed UserTommyfatlad:

They don't allow them as people keep leaving them on the mats in stupid places, such as underneath someone climbing. 

Just got back from a session and first impressions are very positive, really enjoyed the black and red circuits and a circuit board that you can see the footholds is novel 😁.

Can see it fast becoming my go to wall as it’s ticking all the boxes right now.  

In reply to Removed UserTommyfatlad:

They say people would get injured falling into a broom handle. Which is true. But the likelihood of that happening in a massive centre with one or two of them lying around is pretty low. 

In reply to ashtond6:

I would say indoor holds shouldn’t be ridiculously slippery. It’s meant to be as safe as possible in a climbing context, which means minimising the  risk of people unexpectedly slipping off among other things. That’s a risk in itself, without the added danger of people walking below others who are climbing. Otherwise you might as well loosen the bolts to simulate holds coming off and so on. We all spend a lot of time indoors and of course it can never be fully safe, far from it! But it should be as safe as can reasonably be possible. People can and do get injured indoors.

In reply to Misha:

I like the slipperty holds as long as there are not too many of them... it simulates polished rock very well. The key thing when using them is not having big holds underneath that you can hit. On the subject of falling, more people need to learn how to spot and failing that learn how to fall properly: reaching out with hands when in a rotating fall will often break something.  My experience of indoor bouldeing is ambulances are called way more often than for roped climbing...possibpy due to greater throughput and bad falls. Too many walls are a bit crowded adding hazzrds of hitting others in a fall... these big Depots cut that risk massively. I still prefer all the corners and aretes of the Climbing Station style.

In reply to Misha:

Note: my info could be incorrect, but:

I think some of these rules have been driven by insurance company requests (or at least that's what I was told with respect to the Leeds Depot). Same goes for reasons why they got strict around adding weight when finger boarding...

In reply to James Malloch:

Interesting, what did they say? I've been adding weights in the back room at Pudsey Depot and never had a problem, pretty sure staff have seen me doing it.

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

Never mind the climbing. A bog standard tea was £1.60 !!!!

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

Got over there this afternoon and first impressions are very positive. It’s a very big centre, but the light levels are really good. As other posts have observed, routes are nicely spaced and loads of room on mats. 

The 30 degree hardwood holds system board is excellent with a really good range of holds. Same for well set circuit  boards. Then there’s a proper Moonboard and steeper system boards. Well kitted out weights area, proper changing facilities, nice places to sit. 

Too big to get round all stuff of interest, but did plenty of black, red and occasional purples. Setting seems to be really entertaining, except for the hard matched starts being a bit much after a while. The mats are way too firm at the moment for comfort but they will soften up.

Great cafe and well stocked climbing shop. Outside seating area and vegan flapjack, so great in my book. I don’t mind paying extra just to get some space to enjoy climbing. 

So far a 10/10 from me, and not much different than driving time to the Foundry or AW (but wouldn’t go there for bouldering)

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

Agree with all that (except I prefer firm mats). Route setting is exceptional, and I even enjoyed the comp problem area which Im not normally bothered about. Lovely and spacious so that even if its busy you're not going to get fallen on when waiting for a go. I really like the fact that it's a little higher too.

Criticisms? None really, although holds are pretty painful as they're brand new.

It's going to be my wall of choice from now on  

In reply to deacondeacon:

Forgot to mention the pain from the brand new holds, however the upside is that even marginal footholds are bomber at the moment! Edit re mats: I’m 59 today so my creaky knees require soft springy mats. 

We went to The Boardroom a lot when it opened, which had similar matting, which did soften up a little.

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

Has anyone caught the tram there yet? 

I think it’s the Nunnery Square stop and a quick walk? 

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

You could pretty much throw a stone from nunnery Square platform to the Depot, but I think you have to walk up to woodbourn Road and turn back down the Depot entrance to get in. I may be wrong though as you can walk straight across a lot of the tramlines. 

Either way it'll only be 3-4 minutes. 

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

Went there yesterday. 

Very spacious, lots of problems.  Room for for a few more circuits too.

Can't comment on the quality of the setting unfortunately as I was climbing like a bag of spanners.

In reply to Alex@home:

I think the 10 entry tickets have always been global. The change is to the monthly/yearly membership. I used to get £2 off the entry price at Birmingham despite having a yearly membership at Nott's!?

Looking forward to checking out the Sheffield wall. Looks ace!

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

How big is it compared to Depot Manchester?

In reply to afx22:

 Bigger I think, probably the biggest bouldering centre I’ve been to. 

And I guess we won’t find out until Autumn,  it what looks like an industrial sized heating system. Another thing I don’t mind paying extra for

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

It's cheaper than the works though, no? I think the works is now £8.50 and the Depot £8. 

In reply to dunc56:

Thats my issue with the depot wall at manchester.... for a cup of tea, really! Isnt the works 50p or something.

I know in the grand scheme of things its not a big deal and shouldnt really matter but it does genuinely taint my view of the wall.

In reply to idiotproof (Buxton MC):

£1 at Awesome Walls but the cheapskates still take their own flasks

In reply to idiotproof (Buxton MC):

Unless you arrived on foot or by bicycle, in which case you get a cup of tea for free.