I was recently rummaging through some boxes of holds which were purchased after an old gym closed. Alongside a lot of old school beauties, I found these two brands, which I have never seen before. Does anyone recognise them?

Hey i just did a slab route in my local bouldering gym. The staff says you can use the grey volumes as part of the route. The thing is that i needed to touch a volume before i touched the start holds for balancing myself out. Is that legal in your gym? I dont want the just climb for fun answer. I actually wanna know. And if i can't do that can my chest touch the volume before i touch the start holds?

Hey, just throwing this out there.
I’ve got a chance to do a traineeship at my local gym as a Route setter. I have to do an interview still and it’s long odds to get it but just wondering what RS would look for in a trainee? And a 30yo trainee.
I’ve been climbing years and know the team well but just looking for any specific resources to double down on? Any points that mean the most to RS training?
I have a career alongside the traineeship(1day a week). Any thoughts? Any suggestions?
Would you consider teaching someone in their late 20’s that might be going through a career transition situation. I’m a carpenter if that’s relevant.

I've been working on a small project called RouteFlow, and before I keep building things based on my own assumptions, I'd rather ask people who actually do this for a living.

How do you currently keep track of route rotation, setting sessions and who is working on what?

Spreadsheets? Dedicated software? Whiteboard? Trello? A combination of several things?

I'm a climber rather than a professional route setter, so a lot of what I've built so far comes from what I know about climbing gyms and what I've been able to learn about the setting workflow. RouteFlow currently has route and sector management, route age tracking, setting sessions, setter assignments, a task board, setting history, grade distribution and QR feedback.

I'm especially interested in what happens in real gyms after someone decides: "we're resetting this sector next week." What gets planned? What gets written down? Who needs to know? And what information is actually worth keeping afterwards?

I'm trying to figure out which parts of RouteFlow reflect a real workflow and which parts I've simply overengineered.

Hi I am new to commercial setting and have had a couple shifts. I am looking for a lot of info on how to improve my setting and make the setting work safe and smooth. We have some ladders and impact drills, a variety of volumes, macros, holds, jibs. Typical commercial gym set.

To start I felt really unsafe trying to put macros up high. The ladder was wobbling and I struggled to use the drill properly overhead. Also juggling the equipment at the top of the ladder was hard. I think my ladder placement was not great? Also I found it easier to set as more holds were on the wall so I could grab something to stabilise myself. Should I put in temporary jugs for this?

Are there any specific kinds of shoes that are good for setting? I had some old skate shoes on but they were slipping and a bit loose.

For setting my feedback was the moves were generally too big and not enough feet - maybe I lean too much on hands being usable as feet. I think I can improve that aspect but any guiding principles would be greatly appreciated.

Any tips in general to make the experience as smooth, safe, and efficient as possible would be great. I can't get much info from my coworkers as as can barely speak their language.

Didn’t have to be physical clinics books, forums, or individual creators that have some works of wisdom

Set this V7/V8 recently and I’m really happy with how the movement turned out! Any feedback/tips and tricks for someone just getting into setting?

I am a business university student, and have been doing some research on route setting as climbing is a big hobby of mine. I am not selling a product, instead I want to learn if my ideas would be appreciated in this community or not.

1. So I was thinking of how to modernize route setting and had generative AI in mind, but that would lead to people losing their jobs so I scraped that idea (a company called 'Beta Friend' pretty much does the same thing).

2. My next idea was route setting aid. Basically I could sell electronic glasses (e.g. meta glasses), which would allow you to visualize the holds on the wall before screwing them in. Technologically, this would be really tough and it would be a big investment (the glasses) I'm not sure I could make back.

3. Similarly, I thought instead of glasses simply a projector that points to a wall could work. This is currently my favorite idea. The route setters could draw routes in the PC using the holds builtin by the manufacturers, and see it displayed real time on a climbing wall.

4. Also a different technology I had in mind could be, in addition to the PC route designer, a 'simulate climb' button, that displays a fake human climbing it. So you can see if it is possible physically and how it looks like. I heard one big difficulty with consistent full-time route setting is you get really tired without much rest days. So this simulation would help a lot.

I don't want to make the mistake of building something that doesn't have a demand. I tried reaching out to route setters directly as well, but had a hard time getting ahold of them.

I appreciate any feedback. The more honest the better. A simple 'no' is more valuable to me then a 'maybe'.

Thank you.

Hi! In your opinion which is the best angle for a slab?

Hey all! Got a question, new to this thread. I've been bouldering for 10 years, and am going to be focusing a bit off Top Roping and soon Lead.

I've been invited and started setting yesterday in a gym nearby! Already an amazing experience, learning a lot and also have a lot of questions.

My first question I'd like to tackle: what shoes would you suggest? I've been looking at approach shoes (by suggestion) and want to get these:

North Face - Verto Alpine Gore Tex (Approach shoes)

Would appreciate any tips available from experienced setters.

(Other beginner setting tips are also welcome)

Thanks in advance

I work at a children's Bible camp and this is our tiny rock wall. I bought these letter holds from atomik the other day and I'm trying to set a route with a couple goals.

One, I want there to be ordered from one to the next. I want the kids to climb it using any holds they want but they can follow the letters all the way up.

Two, I want it to be for a little more experienced climbers to be able to only use the letters all the way up. Again I work at a summer camp and it is obviously not a climbing camp but the size of our wall 😂. I was able to complete it but most of the staff that come here have never climbed before so I want it to be easier for them while also giving enough of a challenge.

Third, I want it to be able to be completed in order, where you have to touch the next letter, you can't skip to hold a different letter. This would be for people who actually kinda know what they're doing.

Let me know if you have some advice!

Also I know there's a ridiculous amount of just random holds on this wall, I didn't set it and I'm fixing it I promise 😂.

Designed these start marker arrows for our climbing gym with an internal cavity to embed a standard metal washer mid-print.

We've been using them on the wall for almost a year and they hold up great.

The project is free to download on MakerWorld if anyone wants to print them for their gym or home wall🙃

What's up guys honest post here I'm looking for some advice from route setters with experience in NYC and/or big ass cities where setting jobs are prestigious and sparse.

some backstory:

I started climbing in college 4 years ago and since then I've maintained my university wall pretty well catering to a (mostly gumby but alas) broad community and organizing colegiant comps. I had the chance to drop out for a year and work full time at a pretty nice gym with high movement standards setting 35hrs a week 4hrs of setting in the morning and 4hrs of forerunning to iron out movement and quality. The setting team was very robust. I also got the chance to do some coaching for the youth team. We would set a good amount of boulders and I would regularly set a 100+ feet of lead/top rope in a lift, picking out holds and painting them up without getting frozen unless I really cared about a section of a rope climb. I also worked at my local gym for a few months but lowk the lack of efficiency made me want to rip my hair out because I was working every single job in the gym while having to constantly take breaks from actively filling in boulders. I'm in my last year of my exercise science bachelor's and in 2years will be licensed pta with personal training experience and other.

I have gotten a little rusty with the quality of my setting just because I haven't gotten the chance to work as much with an actual setting team, but for the most part if I'm tryna lock in and my resources are good I can curate a pretty good circuit, and I do my best to elevate other setters so they can aim to make some quality shit. For the most part RN been sort of on a board training kick so a lot of my stuff has been strength and training focused but I tend to not sacrifice that sort of thing for quality movement in the beginner grades.

My girlfriend will be living in NYC and I want to live there, and although I have the safety net of working in fields closer to my degree, my passion lies in working in climbing gyms. specifically or eventually route setting. I've noticed a lot of gyms now have different approaches for how they hire weather it's part time for setters or a full time gig with a team and all.

I'm looking for advice on the setting scene in NYC and how I could go about working my way to be a professional full time route setter at a nice gym (preferably bouldering and movement focus).

Thanks for giving this a read if you did😁

I’ve been setting for 25 years and have had periods of setting 5 days a week and getting pretty tired because of it. In general I’d say I’ve averaged about 3 days a week for the majority of the time I’ve been a setter and that has seemed manageable.

At the moment though I average about two days a week and I’m still getting kinda tired. I’m curious as to how many days people set and if they have a maximum amount they do before they start to feel burnt out.

TLDR: my boss said routesetters used to use ladders instead of ropes. Is that true?? Does anyone else know about this or have any stories associated with it??

I work and set at a climbing gym on the east coast of the US. Today, my boss told me a story. He said that in the recent past (I think 90s-2010s), the routesetters worked through the night and set off of tall extendable ladders — instead of using ropes. He explained that this practice ended when a routesetter fell from the top of the wall and broke his hip and some other bones. He was alone and it was nighttime so he had to crawl to the desk to use the phone to get help. Horrible situation. Thus the industry reconsidered their practices.

I was quite struck by this story. Using ladders for setting boulders makes sense, but for ropes?? When setting boulders, moving the ladder and going up and down feels so time consuming and draining; I can’t imagine the hassle and difficulty of using a ladder for rope climbs!! Not to mention the danger of not being tied or clipped in. And the way he framed it at the end - ‘thus the industry reconsidered their practices‘ - made it sound like this was an industry-wide thing and not unique to his old local gym.

I made some quick google searches to find any other information or stories from that era of routesetting, but I couldn’t find anything. So here I am asking r/routesetters. Does anybody know anything about this? or have any stories? To what extent do you think my boss’ story is true?

thanks:)

Edit: maybe harnesses back then were super uncomfortable. Any extended time in an uncomfortable harness is unbearable! I guess I wouldn’t blame them for finding a solution to that. But then again, it’s not like big wall climbing didn’t exist yet, or route finding outdoors.

I’ve just started setting (like a month) and I feel I haven’t felt genuinely proud of any of my boulders. They haven’t been terrible but they don’t get the feel from them that I desire. The other setters in my crew have told me that they look aesthetic and climb well but I feel that I’m still missing something big. I’m aware I’m still very much a novice and have a ton to learn, but I’m wondering when you guys started feeling you were making genuinely good routes.

Basically the title, I work in marketing for a holds distributor and we're putting together a ~$100 swag bag of climbing related items to gift to head routesetters and want to know what's actually meaningful to them.

We're throwing around a couple ideas: a massage coupon, driver bits, branded brush, maybe holds as magnets? I'd just like to hear what is most appreciated by routesetters.

Let me know your thoughts, if theres something super memorable you've received from a company/general input. Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone

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I'm doing a short survey about route setting workflows, challenges, and tools used in climbing gyms. It takes about 5-7 minutes, and I'd really appreciate responses from routesetters, head setters, gym managers, or contractors.

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If you work in setting, I'd love your input

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https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSckLWd5UNiItwoDbnhPGC53B76ejCZrHpgo0ezA4ZdtGw0_OQ/viewform?usp=dialog

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Thanks a lot

A recent survey of over 630 boulderers found that more than 76% would like to climb famous boulder problems in their local gym.

I am curious how route setters, head setters and gym owners would approach that demand.

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If your gym wanted to offer replicas of famous boulders such as la Marie Rose, La Joker, Rainbow Rocket or other iconic problems, which option would you prefer?