Strange Hold Placement and Alternative Taping – Why and Why Not?

We have many many ongoing jokes in the setting crew, and a few of them revolve around proper hold placement and taping practices. We have had sort of an informal competition going on for a while now. Here are a couple of examples from this week.

Strange Hold Placement

From Jon comes this new standard for a low foothold at The Spot. We’re calling it the Colorado Start Foot after some commonly-used, questionably attached low start feet on certain problems in the <cough> Poudre Canyon and <cough> RMNP.

So low it is pressing the pad down.

It actually works pretty well on the problems it’s on though. And it is on two, Black and Neon Green. The Neon Green tape is on the other side of the hold because Jay Jay couldn’t fit it under this side.

Alternative Taping

On Tuesday of this week, while Jonny (who has been the taping guru) was at his other job, Danny and Jon set this little present for him:

Danny and Jon’s little masterpiece

All the holds on one piece of tape. It actually climbs quite well too. But on Wednesday after Jonny saw it and we all laughed, we took it down. So why did we take it down? Why won’t something like this work in the gym regularly? There are a few reasons.

1) It is a waste of tape. And tape is not cheap.

2) Scuffing. This is what happens when the tape begins to roll off the wall. When people slide their feet down the wall and hit the tape it can start to roll, tear, or pull off entirely. With a long piece of tape like this there is a lot of opportunity for scuffing the tape off, and, as we all know, scuffed tape looks bad. Also if the tape comes off it makes it harder to climb the problems since it’s hard to figure out where they’re supposed to go. On this topic, please pay attention to your footwork!  : )

3) Can interfere with other problems on the wall.

4) Most problems have holds outside the line, and we don’t want to tape spider webs for each problem.

At Psychedelia we set many interesting tape jobs, but for the rest of the year the simple 45 degree right rule seems to keep the gym looking its best.

See you at The Spot!