Nearly One Year Old...

This Monday, The Climbing Works will have been open for exactly one year. A lot has happened since I walked into the completely empty disused factory last September 1st and watched the first huge consignment of timber get unloaded off the truck! Only 15 months later here we are with an awesome wall that we hope you've all had a great time on. Here's a few statistics off the top of my head to give you an idea of the immense ammount of work Sam, Graeme, and all our loyal staff have put in over the last year.

Climbing Works now has well over 8000 registered members.
Since we opened, so far we have set over 1500 problems!
Three new sections of wall have been added - the roof in the red room, and two new steep bits on the competition wall.
The competition wall and the slab have been repainted once already, and now already look filthy again!

Whilst Climbing Works wasn't the first dedicated bouldering centre, we were the first really big bouldering only centre, and our formula has already been replicated in both the UK and in Holland which, if nothing else proves that our idea must have been a good one!

So, this week I have taken delivery of at least 2 circuits worth of new holds for you all to enjoy. First off, a new blue circuit will be finished for Wednesday next week with smashing brand-new Entre-Prises holds - grade range from Font 3 to 5. Then on Friday the competition wall will be reset for the 2nd round of the bouldering league which will start at 7pm Friday night. Straight after this its off to Club Shhhh for a massive party - if you want a ticket you'll have to hurry. They are free, and avaliable from reception at The Works. We initially thought we'd never shift 500 tickets - currently we will run out in the next day or two, so be quick!

Albarracin..

Hello everyone,

Lucinda and I have been on holiday in Spain for two weeks, a much needed holiday! First we spent a few days winding down and chilling out in Murcia. Then we drove for about five hours north to Albarracin in Aragon. The bouldering in Albarracin is awesome, consisting of lots of different styles of climbing on good quality sandstone. We had excellent accommodation about 30 mins drive from the boulders, including 3-4 course meals with vino tinto for only 12 Euros each! We climbed 6 out of 8 days because we were so psyched to be there. We both climbed well and dispatched loads of the classics's. I'm psyched to go back and looking forward to training on the new circuits to stay fit. Check out my Scarpa blog and Lucinda's blog for more photo's etc,

http://www.scarpa.co.uk/team/blogs.asp?blogID=314&TeamID=6

http://www.lucindahughes.blogspot.com/

Results and pictures

Last Friday nights bouldering league was a great event - over 60 competitors turned out to have a crack at the awesome problems set by Jacky Godoffe and Jamie Cassidy. The results should now be up on the Climbing Works website - look in the news section. The nice guys at http://www.pofroad.com/ made a special visit all the way from France just to attend the competition, but also to see if all the hype they had heard about the Worlds biggest bouldering wall was true. Take a look in their blog to see if the Works lived up to their expectations or not (for those of you who don't speak French, they were blown away!) Also check out the pictures they took - especially the nice panorama of the wall. It looks awesome, and if you're bored you can play 'Where's Poppy?' (like Where's Wally, only with a small scruffy black and white dog...)

Unfortunately, the French 'ringer' shipped over for the comp to 'show you English how to climb' came to grief with you of my jamming cracks, thus getting relegated to a top ten position instead of the top spot as was predicted. Better luck next time, Ludo!

True to form, Gaz 'Swoop' Parry took the £50 special prize for the first person to climb Jacky's special bolder problem - the key to success seems to be to get your strong Frenchman to work the problem to get a sequence, and swoop in for the ascent. However, the big prizes on the night went to Mancunian strongman, Dave Barrans who is continuing his great form from last years bouldering league (which he won!), and the Ladies top prize went to Leah Crane.

Below are a few pictures from Jacky Godoffe of the comp and the grit at the weekend. Enjoy!

New Circuit & Bouldering League R1

Tonight sees the start of the Climbing Works Bouldering League and with Percy, Jacky & Jamie setting expect some strange moves & jamming somewhere along the line. The boys are hard at it now but by 7pm there will be 25 problems plus 1 £50 bonus problem.

Not content with resetting the whole comp wall the boys took some time yesterday to set a brand new purple circuit - 6a - 7a or thereabouts. The circuit took a good hammering last night with most members singing its praises. Overall, thats 4 new circuits in the last 4 weeks plus a new comp wall. You certainly can't complain about having nothing to do on your next visit.


Other news is the arrival of Boreal Shoes into the shop. We've got the classic Jokers (velcro & lace), the superb Crux's & the brand new high-end Falcons. All of these where on show for the Boreal demo on tuesday night and the falcons where highly popular.

Superstars in the Works

Yes, its the fabulous Boreal UK representative, Ed Browning, with some bloke called Dani who just happened to be knocking around! (Many thanks to POD for the photo.)

Oh, sorry, Its Dani Andrada and Ed Browning at the Boreal boot demo night which was held at the Works last night. Ed is a superstar (obviously) but I believe Dani may be better known to most of the climbers out there! Rumour has it that Dani may pop back to the Works before the end of the week to set a 'signature problem' on our training board. Should be good!

Monsieur Godoffe is also at The Works for the next few days, routesetting with Jamie 'Monkey' Cassidy. Jacky landed at Leeds/Bradford airport today, where he was whisked straight off to Almscliffe for a quick session in the last few hours of perfect conditions. A selection of classics went down, including Demon Roof and Pebble Wall. Bad light stopped play on the Keel but theres always next time. Now preparations are well under way for the first round of the Climbing Works Bouldering League on Friday. The competition starts at 7pm and will run until 10pm. Should be a great comp, with Ludovic Laurence of France making the trip over from France for a bash at the problems. He recently suggested in an email that he would show us English folks how to climb! I hope he can jam.....!-)

Ramblings whilst in transit

I am between climbing walls (been in Sunderland today setting routes, now on my way to Westway in London to set a bouldering comp) so just thought I would let everybody know that I have also reset the yellow circuit it The Works with Mr Whittaker this week. As always, this is the hardest circuit, and we have set some really hard problems this time. 39 problems between 6c+ and 7c+, the majority of which fall in the 7a to 7b range. As always all styles and tastes are catered for, from slabby nastiness to long horizontal brutality. Enjoy!

I'm back at The Climbing Works next week for a few days working with Jacky Godoffe. We will reset the purple circuit, before tackling the competition wall for the bouldering league's first round on Friday 16th. We worked out the other day that we have set well over 1200 problems at The Climbing Works since we opened last December. Thats not bad for 11 months work, and we're as psyched as ever to keep coming up with new problems for you all to try!

Upcoming Events...

There's a number of important dates to put in your calendar for Climbing Work events. As Sam mentioned below, our first birthday party is coming up and on Friday 7th Dec we will be hosting a huge not-to-be-missed party in Sheffield. Tickets will be free for Climbing Work members and they will be available from later this week from the front desk - ask staff for details.

With winter arriving it's time for the 2nd Climbing Works Bouldering League. Always on a Friday night and always between 7-10pm. Dates are:

• 16th November
• 7th December (same night as 1st party!!)
• 25th January
• 22nd February

The first round (16th Nov) will have the French legend, Jacky Godoffe, setting problems along with our own Percy B. Jacky will also be setting the special bonus problem (£50 for the first person to send it).

If that wasn't enough the Spanish legend, Dani Andranda aka Mr 8a, will be in the Climbing Works on Tuesday 13th November for a Boreal Shoe Demo. There will be a number of shoes available to try out between 7-10pm and Dani will be putting some of the climbing work problems to test.

And finally, Dave MacLeod will be in the Climbing Works giving a lecture on the Sunday 9th December. Title is 'To Hell & Back' and will it should be a cracking night. Tickets are available on the front desk now - £5 for concessions & climbing work members, £6 everyone else.

Party time.....

Well its coming up to our 1st birthday and we thought it would be great to celebrate in fine style. We are having a Xmas / 1 years anniversary party on the friday the 7th December at Club Shhh at the Wicker Archers in Sheffield. It starts 10pm and finishers late free tickets to Climbing Works members will be available from reception next week. We have 2 rooms of all kinds of music including a guest DJ from leeds called Dave Martin http://www.myspace.com/davemartinuk Other DJ's are DJ Gallop ( Sam ) , Dizzy 9 ( Harry) John ( from reception ) Daddy K and many more...