Spray day

We've started painting the walls, as you may deduce from the photos. The outline of the person was created by careful positioning of the monkey in front of the wall and spraying him with emulsion from an industrial paint spraying machine. Don't worry folks, we made sure he kept his mouth closed - most of the time! The green paint is his favourite! And now he has the perfect look for Haloween..............

Congratulations Lucky Members

Thank you to all those who have sent in money for the special offer memberships. Sorry we have not updated you sooner but it has been hectic, to say the least.

We have put the membership list together and our Webmaster will be posting a list of the first members, of the biggest boudlering wall the world has ever seen, on the main site.

Cheers, Sam

A day out with the monkey

At last a little reprieve from plywood, and I got to take my monkey to Almscliffe for the day. Obviously as it was such a beautiful day everybody else had the same idea, so it was rammed, but we still had a good time failing on stuff. The monkey (Jamie) managed a 7c eventually, whereas I had to content myself with a pretty good flash attempt, followed by complete shut-down. Ho hum..... Building the biggest bouldering wall in the world in 6 weeks seems to have left us a little fatigued! Nevermind - there's light at the end of the tunnel. Paint day tomorrow, and the arrival of a huge industrial paint spraying machine should see the walls transformed pretty quickly, I reckon! Apologies theres no pictures today - Graeme has been slow with the production of Jamies blackmail picture. The photograph of my monkey lying on his front lapping milk from a saucer whilst being stood upon by a whip wielding dominatrix dressed as catwoman will have to wait until tomorrow!

Looking good....

The boys are still painting. Now they've got the bit between their teeth and they've noticed how much other blank space on the walls there is! Well, we couldn't say no, so bring on even more spray paint, beer and another night of graffiti down the works. I wonder what will be on the walls by tomorrow? We'll keep you posted!

what happened next?

the Boy's are still painting!!

After feeding the boy's up with a large pizza and some Guiness they pushed on into the night!!
i have just left them to it - creating a master piece!
check out these picture.
cheers Sam and Lu

Graffiti time

The graffiti team are in the Works doing their thing. The picture shows the boys just starting work this afternoon. By the looks of things, by the time I get back in there tomorrow they should have painted loads of walls - can't wait to see it!

Can we go down the slide?

Yes, you can! I've spent the last few days building the kids boulders, and these have proved a good source of amusment for everybody. The bigger of the two boulders has a slide built into it, so you can top out and return to earth whizzing down the slide! No pictures of it for you all yet, but maybe later in the week. This feature probably won't just be popular with kids...!!!! My French route setting chums are psyched for a mid-November setting mission, so watch out on the gritstone, everybody. A strong gallic team ripping it up looms on the horizon.

Climbing Works Videos

Take a tour with Sam around the Climbing Works...


Watch a time lapse photo video of the construction...

Phase One complete

It's done - all the main structures are up. Not finished yet, sanding. filling and painting needs to take place, but the walls are all up. It is the worlds biggest bouldering wall, without any doubt. I spent a moment and stepped back to have a look at what we've created, and even the most cynical boulderer is going to be flabbergasted at the size and complexity of the climbing wall now in situ! The first consignment of matting arrived today too, which is a good sign.
So now it's dark, and somewhere in the sprawling metropolis a dark and sinister bouldering wall lies brooding, waiting for its first victims............

Adios Longy

Frantic cutting and screwing of bits of climbing wall this week as our head honcho on the wall build, Longy, is off to Spain on Friday for some long awaited R+R, as well as a load of climbing, no doubt! So, operation Push On has been in full effect with the bulk of the major wall construction to be finished by the end of this week - and we're still looking good to make it. The first consignment of foam for our matting will arrive tommorrow, followed by epic man-handling of huge slabs of the stuff. This load is only the matting for our competition wall, which is tucked away in one end of our building so we shouldn't take two long to unload the 2 lorries its being delivered in....I wish! Anyway, before I head off for a bath, here's some new pictures to keep everybody amused....

















The bearded one at the top is the Jedinator, T-nut gimp and all-round star enjoying a spot of cake.
Below, Managing Director Sam Whitaker being the big cheese and handling an inflatable punch-bag at the same time. Just another normal day down the works....
(...loooks painful that, Sam. You can get ointment to sort that type of problem out, you know!)

sam's up and running

Hi everyone, hope you're all well.
Im finally set up to use the blog!
i will post some pictures of the horendous blisters i have on the palms of my hands after our staff training afternoon at Wakefield Go Kart Track!
Jamie got the fastest time of the day finally beating Andy's quick previous times.
Push on boy's keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Sam

A day out....

Yesterday we took the wall building team for a lovely day out down to London. However, rather than spend a day sight-seeing, away from the huge piles of timber that have surrounded us for the last 5 weeks we actually went to London to work. Andy, Jason, myself and the stunt monkey (Jamie) had to do a days route setting at The Castle climbing centre in the Big Smoke for the Capitol Climbing Festival, which is taking place today. Obviously, not being able to stay away from wall building work for too long, once the problems were set we immediately drove back up to Sheffield for more construction. Mind you, letting us lot loose on other peoples climbing walls is maybe not such a good idea anyway. Pictured is some of my better work from the climbing gym at La Colmiane, southern France. I figure this sort of route setting is both functional and educational.

So, now back to the grind. This week should see the majority of the main structures work finished in the Climbing Works. Then the fun (?) of painting and setting will begin......

Go on, Jason!

Building climbing walls can turn you a bit strange. Pictured here is my good friend Christopher Biggins (AKA Pickles), a man you wouldn't want to bump into in a dark alley! Its hard work drilling upwards into a steel girder when you're perched on top of a scaffold tower.... hence the pained expression. Protective head gear is always worn when working at the Climbing Works - here Biggins is sporting a safety 'Fro!

Things are moving on nicely at the moment, with new bits of wall popping into existance all over the place. Many thanks to Ben Moon and the Moon Climbing team (www.moonclimbing.com ), who've just joined the fray as our latest sponsors. The training board will now benefit from a load of nice new Moon Climbing holds for you all to pull on. Cheers Ben!

New bits

Apologies for the lack of blog for the last week, so to make up for it, heres some pictures of what we've been up to whilst we've been away. The shot at the top shows Taz hanging from what has become known as 'The Skip' - the result of wall builders whose perception of reality has been warped by resin fumes. We don't know what it is, but it looks awesome, is unique, and climbs amazingly! The green thing is our competition wall. The picture doesn't do it any justice - in the flesh its over 60 feet wide! Just had an email from Jacky Godoffe who is keen to come over and set some problems for us in November - we will wait and see when he has a few days free to come and play with us on the vast array of climbing surfaces that have now been created. Congrats too to Jacky, who's just become a daddy again (5th time!).

Newlook Blog

Well, looks like we may be getting somewhere. The old Blog proved to be a load of rubbish so we've sorted a new one out.

Blogaway...

Day Off

Posted by PercyB on Sat 30 Sep 2006

At last, a sunny saturday and I've finally been persuaded by everybody to take a day off, after a month of pretty much non-stop work in some form or other. My first day of no 'proper' work in September. Result!

So, its off into the jungle of our back garden to set about the grass which has reached a 'depth' of about 8 inches. Wall building has taken priority over gardening recently so its time to redress the balance!

Once thats done, an afternoon on the grit with the usual suspects beckons. Bring it on....

Posted on Fri 29 Sep 2006

Am onto tech support to see how we incorporate a logo and a url into the blog header. Seems I'm not a tehnical dunce after all as they are struggling to come up woth an answer. Any blog experts out there with all the answers feel free to get in touch!

Holds, holds and more bloody holds. And why blogs are better than forums.

Posted by GraemeA on Fri 29 Sep 2006

First things first.

I have just discovered why having your own blog is better than posting on a forum. It's simple. I can be rude to people in a way that I can't be on a public forum. After all this blog is ours. So be warned!

But back to the purpose of this blog. To let you all know whats happening.

Percy and Sam have been beavering away all day. Make of that what you will. But the comp wall is nearly finished, just a bit of snagging to finish it off.

So the real work starts, the Circuits area. This will be the most complex area. What Longy and Jas have created so far was about GCSE level (granted they both got A+ for their efforts, both theoretical and practical) in comparison to what will follow, what they are about to embark upon is I reckon equivalent to post doctorate research. Luckliy the boys are the pre-eminent researchers in their chosen field.

I have spent the evening emailing various dudes around the world asking about their holds. we need stacks of holds and we want lots of variety. So hopefully we will be giving you the best selection of holds there is.

Also been doing the sums and we can pay all our bills, which is a good thing.En primeur offer has just gone live so check out the site.

By the way have you all got Google Alerts on your machines? It's one of those dead clever Google things that alerts you when a website is updated. I've never sussed it out but thats why I run Competitions and don't perform brain surgery. I am sure Matt might be able to explain.

MananaGraeme

Blog

This is obviously the new Climbing Works Blog. Please don't whinge about how basic it looks. It will be re-designed as soon as the main site design is decided upon.

Feel free to post other comments and suggestions though. That is one of the primary reasons for having a Blog!