Sunday 31 August 2008

Interest hotting up

I noticed today that the number of people visiting our blog is on the increase (160 on Friday) so the word is obviously out there and the interest growing. In case you don't know, we also have a facebook group here, so why not join up to be certain of getting up-to-date news.
Yesterday we almost finished the big roof. Every visitor has been sent deep in the corner on the only two holds we've placed, to look over their shoulder and see how far it is to the lip - jaws have universally dropped!

Thursday 28 August 2008

The Roof Of Eternity

Mike and I ploughed on with our uber-roof today and it's taking shape quite nicely. I can't think I've ever seen any indoor climbing structure that compares and we've already had a few visitors' jaws hitting the floor. It's a beast for sure and will certainly 'butch up' the Bristol massive.



There's been high praise for Compound Corner too - I can't wait for it to be painted and to get a few choice problems set.

Tuesday 26 August 2008

Photos

So some photos at last. I wanted to wait until we had some ply cladding up or it just doesn't look much at all. Mike and I have been beavering away and things are nicely taking shape. Rich has been t-nutting as have both Kev and Extreme Roger. Thanks guys.
I've just finished what's become known as 'Compound Corner' - due to the complexity of angles and cuts - and it certainly had me scratching my head a few times. It was worth the moments of frustration though and we have a wild and unique feature.
This completes the circuits area, made up of a 12 degree board, a 30 degree board leading into Compound corner (45 degrees), then the campus board and finally the curving wall leading to the fire exit doorway.




We've now just started on the framework for the roof feature and will be cracking on with that this week. Mike couldn't quite understand the shapes in my head until I made a quick model. It will be over 4m wide by 6m long with angles of 10, 20, 45, 80 and 85 degrees overhanging... Compound city no less!



The internals are taking shape, Tony and Will are in baton heaven - toilets, showers, office and kitchen wall studding is all slotting into place and the extractor fans have been mounted in their custom housings. We should hopefully be replacing our tired steel shutter doors next week with brand new electric ones.



It's starting to feel like a climbing wall in there now though there's still a long way to go and lots of new and exciting shapes to create...

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Update on progress

As Paul's locked in at the wall building ever more complicated shapes, I thought I'd spend a few mins giving you all update.
We've been building for nearly 2 weeks now and are starting to see some real progress. The stud work for the offices, toilets, showers, treatment room is coming along nicely. There wasn't much clearing to do so our builder was able to get moving pretty quickly.
Over in the climbing area, we've started with the circuit boards. So far we've got 4 boards up along with a campus board. They all overhang from 10 to 45 degrees and are a mix of flat and shaped boards.
The basic frame for our traverse wall is also coming along so once we get the circuit boards finished we'll move onto creating the shapes to make this interesting.
We're hoping that Andy Long will be able to join us on site soon to start the problem structures - he tells us he's got some great ideas!
It's all looking very real now so over the next few weeks we'll start posting some pictures and bit more information about location, memberships, facilities etc.

Friday 1 August 2008

We're In


Finally we've started work on Bristol's dedicated bouldering centre, and here's a taster of the space we'll be filling for you over the next few months. We're quite excited now....