Home wall climbing holds question

[ujhbn]

Hey all,

I plan to build at moonboard at 40 degree and another similar wall at 20 degree for circuits/endurance. I have been thinking about buying climbing holds for my 20 wall and I have two questions.

1. What percentage of holds you prefer to have on your wall and why? (ex. 40% mid/small crimps 30% pinch 10%jug etc..) 
2. I will need around 300 handholds for my wall. I plan to fill up all t-nuts but not all at one time. Should I buy them from many different companies to have many different kind of holds? Or should I buy from just 2-3 brands? (but my wall may end up with less varieties of holds)

Thanks!

PS: I will using my 20 wall mostly for circuits and limit bouldering on moonboard. I'm not good at route setting and have only few hours to climb per week. I would prefer to spend those time climbing.

[willblack]

1: I think that depends on what type of climbs you want to train for. I really like limestone, so if I were building a 20 degree wall I would honestly probably go with something like 50% crimps 40% pockets and 10% jugs, but that's just me and my weird love of pockets.
2: The cheapest thing to do would be to get all your holds in a couple big orders which would limit you to just a couple companies, but I think that placing multiple small orders would likely lead to the best hold selection. If I were you I would place an order from eGrips for about a hundred holds that you think will be good for training on. eGrips has a good selection of holds, and I think they do a good job of making holds that have interesting shapes and demand subtlety while still being comfortable to train on. After you actually use your wall you will probably be much better informed on how best to set it, and which types of holds you need more of at which point you can buy more holds. In terms of hold selection, there are several forums full of recommendations as well as a blog post from a while back.

[MarkAnderson]

+1 for e-Grips, though I am biased and should not be trusted, haha.

I find with my wall that I tend to gravitate towards the highest-quality holds. So if you go with a variety of brands, it would make the most economic sense to get holds that are all in the same class (quality-wise). Lower-quality holds won't get used much, if at all, so they end up being a big waste of money. You're better off with fewer really good holds, then a huge number of holds, half of which never get used.

[ujhbn]

Thanks for the replies guys!

I guess I will start of with 2-3 brands as recommended in forum (e-Grips,teknik,kilters) then I will see how it goes. I will try to pick quality holds tho

[Otis.]

ujhbn, Kilter, Teknik and eGrips are all amazing, with Kilter and Teknik being my top two recommendations. You may also want to look at Flathold. In my opinion, they are the best European hold manufacturer, and they have a North American line being poured by Aragon, the same company that pours Kilter, Teknik and eGrips. I have a home wall and also do a lot of the hold ordering recommendations for my local gym. I would highly recommend checking out the following shapes, all have relatively small footprints and great ergonomics:

KILTER: Noah Medium 7; Noah Small 1 & 5; Sandstone Medium 2, 4 & 13; Winter Medium 5, 7, 8 & 10; Winter Small 2 & 3

TEKNIK: Meatlets, Minimeats, Meatiums, Scarabs, Runts, Bullies, Fat Pinches, Curled Slopers

eGRIPS: SoCo comfy edges and crimps, sandstone comfy crimps, Jax jugs 2, buttons, fossil pockets, myorcan sloper edges, myorcan sloper jugs, myorcan tufa pinches, myorcan slopers, and limeston rails

FLATHOLD: Tokyo 2020 TK7 & TK10, rustic flowers RF78, Rocklander RK 12 & RK 35

If you do bulk orders, you can likely contact the companies directly and they will give you a bit of a discount. Happy shopping.

[ujhbn]

Thanks a lot Otis for this huge shopping list!

[ujhbn]

It had been almost a year since I posted this. Thanks a lot for all the feedbacks!

I end up with my 40 degree moonboard and 30 degree circuit wall (not 20 anymore) My climbing has been around moonboard v4-6 and circuits on 30 wall. The problem is that I think I made a mistake of havnig too many crimps and not enough slopers/pinches. I find this is quite hard for my fingers so I decide to buy a little more pinches or slopers. I have just a set of curled slopers from teknik and a few wood pinches.

Any recommendations?

Thanks!

[willblack]

I personally feel like teknik has the market cornered on slopes and pinches. You really can't go wrong with any of their sloper/pinch sets. I think the curled slopers/big curled sloper go especially well for setting slopey moderates on a 30 and the fat lips and fat grips are suuuuuuper good for dynamic slopey juggy goodness on a 30. Any of their other slopers and pinches are also good on that angle though most of them would be mandatory V5 and up on a 30. The loaves from egrips are also pretty sweet.

[Otis.]

From a footprint perspective, Teknik is probably your best bet. They do a great job producing quality pinches and slopers in a relatively small footprint for home walls. Rock Candy also does a pretty good job with pinches on smaller footprints. You may want to take a look at them as well. The other big players, Kilter, e-Grips, SoIll, etc. make good pinches and slopers too, but they tend to be larger holds which don't always fit the best on a woody.

[jlarson]

Eh...I've also got a moonboard and I find my 'serious' climbing is done exclusively on those holds which significant translation to outdoor climbing.

I went to a climbing gym and bought a set of jugs for 1$ per hold (in the new health clubby gyms, old holds are nearly worthless to them, just talk to the setters and they'll probably hook you up).

Eventually, I'll buy a bunch of screw on foot jibs and spray them all over the bottom of the MB which will be a cheap way to get more value (tensiony climbing practice) as the MB problems get more and more gymnastic at the higher grades.

[ujhbn]

I agreed that Teknik really make smaller footprint holds than other brands. I will look into them again.

Thanks!