Test Results

It’s snowing as I write this and nighttime temps are dipping into the teens. Colorado’s winter seems to be starting in mid-October this year. Ice climbing and skiing loom on the horizon, but what happened to autumn cragging? While one of my more demented co-workers insists that 32 degrees is the optimal redpoint temperature, most of us aren’t so sold on the idea. So, how to keep in shape? Time to hit the home woody.
For those living in communities without large gyms, or who prefer their own tunes and bros to the strutting and jostling of pay-to-play facilities, home woodies are a godsend. You can crank your music, swear with impunity, and shred until the cows cry for mercy. You’ll also be setting your own problems, which has cons as well as pros. Spend too much time dithering with route creation and you’ll wonder where your time went; spend too little and you’ll find yourself bored and back on the couch, channel-surfing. What, then, is the key to home-woody route setting? Good grips, of course, and if you’re just getting started with your garage, basement, or spare-room climbing masterpiece, you’ll want to take a good look at investing in a startup kit.
Almost every hold manufacturer offers some kind of boxed set to swiftly get you up and climbing on your home wall. While each company has a slightly different spin on exactly what kind of holds a kit should contain, the basic package is consistent: a selection of 30 to 50 shapes that provide a wide variety of route-setting possibilities within a minimum amount of space. Along with the holds, many manufacturers also conveniently include mounting hardware (T-nuts and bolts) and wrenches. Over the past eight months we tested kits from 24 manufacturers, well over 750 holds in total. As none of us had a home woody large enough to contain all these holds, the Colorado Rocky Mountain School, a local Carbondale high school, graciously allowed us to use their new wall. Just as important for our testing, with the wall came a ravenous student test crew who helped us put the grips through their paces. All told, over 40 people participated in the review, pawing, crimping, and yarding, leaving the holds buried in a thick coating of chalk and boot rubber. At the end of it all, we came through with a firm idea of what did and didn’t work when it comes to home starter kits.
What shapes? First of all, stay away from the big stuff. Unless you’re outfitting horizontal ceiling panels, bulbous jugs and fat roof features are for commercial gyms, not home rigs. They take up valuable wall surface and make for elbow-smashing, head-crushing obstacles when you’re chucking the heinous dyno on Pinky and the Brain. The occasional mid-size jug here and there is okay, but you should focus on holds that challenge you and maximize your available space. A panel packed with 30 small holds (up to two or three inches in size), ranging from ultra-positive edges to grim-but-grippable slopers, is infinitely more stimulating than the same square footage adorned with five monotonous jugs. All the manufacturers in this review were keenly aware of that fact and assembled their kits accordingly.
When picking shapes, consider the main outdoor areas you hit, and also any weaknesses you’re looking to train. This will steer you toward pockets, edges, slopers, rails, or some combination thereof. Manufacturers delight in simulating the rock of famous areas, from Fontainebleau sandstone to Eldorado edges; many of these area-specific shapes find their way into home-wall kits. If you don’t have any specific requirements based on those criteria, go for a good mix of everything, with emphasis on all-purpose edges and slopers. You probably don’t want a kit that is shotgunned with 40 clashing hold designs, nor a monolithic combo that limits your route-setting possibilities.
You’ll also want to look at the grips’ individual versatility. Do they offer singular gripping positions or multiple options? Do they tend to favor one hand over another? Versatility works both ways. Simple shapes can induce boredom, but they help you set precise, technical problems. More complex shapes make it easy to spice things up, but they can often provide ways to cheat that you didn’t notice when you initially set a problem. We especially liked the simple shapes that still provided very different gripping options or difficulties when rotated.
Shape options go beyond just the simple choices of knob, edge, or pocket. Holds with varying textures and subtle, multi-faceted features help beat the route-setting doldrums, and also help you practice the tricky, unusual finger positions found on real rock. Color also plays a role in a hold’s function. The holds we reviewed varied from garish neons to subtle shades of gray. Wild colors assist games such as add-on, where you need to quickly identify holds; subtly colored grips that blend into your wall are better for setting difficult-to-onsight problems.

Test Results

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