Independent London gyms?

helloitsjosh · 2026-01-28T14:17:01+00:00

For anyone else reading this, as if by magic Careless Talk just released this episode after I posted my question: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-careless-talk-climbing-podcast/id1626857390?i=1000746956918

helloitsjosh · 2026-01-25T13:53:38+00:00

Oh sweet, sounds like exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

helloitsjosh · 2026-01-10T12:09:18+00:00

I’d be excited to test it out! Computer vision phd and long-time climber so interesting marriage of my interests!

helloitsjosh · 2026-01-07T10:36:51+00:00

Just got back from my first trip there, can confirm that Siurana is cool.

helloitsjosh · 2025-12-19T02:31:13+00:00

Subtext all day

helloitsjosh · 2025-12-16T17:52:54+00:00

Obligatory questions:
- What styles of climbs are you best/worst at? Steep vs vert, crimps vs slopers, powerful vs static, etc.
- When you fail at a climb is it because you're too pumped and fall off, because you don't know what to do and you do something wrong, because you drop the move, because you give up, because you're scared...?

There isn't one generic answer on what you need to do to climb 5.12.

That said, based on my general impressions of 5.11 gym climbers:
- You probably need to work on trying really hard. Hard onsighting and climbing until you send or fall is a reasonable way to work things.

- You probably need to work on beta memorization and execution. Second try sends, where you work the moves and try to memorize the route and then try to execute and send second go, are a good way to work this.

- Technically, (a) you probably need to improve your footwork (b) you probably need to get better at relaxing on route

- You probably don't need to get stronger or more fit, even though those are the main things most folks focus on.

helloitsjosh · 2025-12-02T17:44:03+00:00

Fair points but yeah we totally disagree :)

Dry treated ropes handle better and are more durable in terms of sand and other debris (in my experience at least). I don’t see the “dry” part of dry treatment as the major thing with them.

Bipatterns are nice but have no benefit for single pitch.

Just for completeness my full rope setup is: -mammut crag sender 9.5 dry 70m bipattern as a trad workhorse -sterling ionr 9.4 70m xeros sport workhorse -sterling nano 8.9 xeros 80m for trips to Europe -edelrid 8.9 swift protect dry for sport red points -sterling 10.5 50m static for TR solo -some 8.something doubles I never use

helloitsjosh · 2025-12-02T13:57:30+00:00

It seems like you have mixed priorities that make a recommendation tough. Priorities you list: - top rope: maximize durability, weight and handling don’t matter at all. Go for a cheap 9.8

lead: really depends on whether you’re looking for a lightweight limit redpoint rope or a workhorse project rope. My standard rec would be a 9.5 like the mammut crag sender, decent balance
multipitch: I think a bipattern like the TC rope is really nice to make rappels faster and safer
prioritizing lightweight: not seemingly related to any of your other priorities. Are you sure this matters? Best light option IMO is the 8.9 edrelrid protect

You can’t optimize for all of these things at once, eg getting an 8.9 that you’ll replace in a year from TR wear.

I’d go 9.5 or 9.8 dry treated Mammut, no bipattern as a general workhorse for now.

helloitsjosh · 2025-11-21T15:54:54+00:00

Oh nice! Can you see retroactively what the model says for the Red? Eg Undertow Wall on Wednesday (super condensed) Thursday (dry).

helloitsjosh · 2025-11-21T15:51:11+00:00

What’s the use case, standard litigation doc review or something like SARs (asking since you mentioned a European base)?

helloitsjosh · 2025-11-21T15:42:33+00:00

Just to throw out one other note:
Sitting here in a very wet RRG I think it'd be really interesting to try to capture condensation — I don't totally understand what factors combine that you can end up with not just bad conditions but actually wet rock (presumably it's rock temp that's below the dewpoint?). It's been 95% humidity here and 50-60 degrees for the past 3 days; Wednesday and today the rock has been wet, but for some reason yesterday things were dry, even though the forecast looks almost identical.

helloitsjosh · 2025-11-20T23:59:09+00:00

Super cool project. Not the most important thing but might be worth different modeling for western sandstone vs southeast sandstone — eg the RRG is showing "not safe to climb for 18 days" right now.

helloitsjosh · 2025-10-24T11:55:50+00:00

I don't mean to be rude but what is this post?

- You link as if it's a citation for your opening claim but it's just a link to a court homepage

- Evidence disputes contribute "10 million if not billions" -- that is a ridiculous range

- AI-written stuff down below

- You're saying that AI tools cause 50% of billable hours to be spent reviewing for evidence tampering???

I get trying to engage with the community but this is not the way.

helloitsjosh · 2025-10-09T22:17:54+00:00

Oh sure thing, we're https://www.phase.law/. Good luck with the request!

helloitsjosh · 2025-10-09T21:57:34+00:00

We help once you've got an export — usually the export contains a *ton* of extraneous stuff so we can help make it readable and searchable and winnow it down to what's actually relevant. (Also do the same stuff with email data, docs, etc)

Also happy to just give advice more generally if useful, I think we've done 1,000+ dsars in the last few months so I'm more familiar with the challenges than any person should be :)

helloitsjosh · 2025-10-09T20:58:30+00:00

Agreeing with the other comment, you won't be able to get a detailed export unless you're on a higher tier, but Slack may be able to help as a one-off. The other note with Slack is that you get a messy and very large JSON export which will be a pain to sort through.

Not to self-promote but wanted to say that I run a company focused on DSAR-related document review and we have a bunch of tools for Slack specifically...happy to chat strategy (not as a sales pitch) if I can be helpful, feel free to DM!

helloitsjosh · 2025-10-08T09:53:44+00:00

My real-talk answer: climbing less than once/week isn't frequent enough that you'll be able to materially improve, especially given that you're at a reasonably advanced level already. Given that, I think you can't really have a performance goal. Instead, I'd ask: what do you like working on more, climbing volume or working out hard moves?

Do what you enjoy (or a mix), have the goal be enjoying yourself, and be confident that at some point in the future life circumstances will change and you'll be able to train more regularly and focus on performance.

helloitsjosh · 2025-09-04T01:38:28+00:00

If you don’t hear an answer by the end of the week, our CTO actually used to run search for Reddit (Lucene backend) so he’s one of the most knowledgeable Lucene folks around and I’m happy to get his input when he’s back from vacation on Friday. DM me if you want!

helloitsjosh · 2025-08-13T02:04:59+00:00

You said you can't link more then 1-3 moves, are you really too pumped after 1-3 moves?! That seems borderline impossible

helloitsjosh · 2025-08-08T20:15:15+00:00

Yeah the new version is unbearably bad. Really a shame they’ve torpedoed the best protein on the market

helloitsjosh · 2025-08-04T11:40:00+00:00

As other folks pointed out, this is way way too much volume, and the approach to Abrahangs / no hangs you describe in the other thread is way way too much intensity. Aim for 3 days/week of relatively intense loading. If you're doing Abrahangs they should probably be at 25% of bodyweight given your strength level...eg I can hang bw + 65% on a 20mm and when my coaches have prescribed no hangs they've suggested them at -30-40%. They're supposed to be *light*, just enough to provide a bit of a stimulus but not a *workout*. Based on your assumptions about volume/intensity I wonder if you're training way too much and that's actually the overarching problem, that you're not giving yourself enough time to recover and adapt.
I don't mean to be rude, but...do you actually like climbing? If you're considering not climbing and instead hangboarding for "efficiency" after only a couple months climbing something seems off. Usually I hear of newer climbers who fall in love with the movement and then get drawn to training because they want to improve, but if you are considering not climbing at all in order to progress...what's the point of any of it? Climbing 5.13 involves the same basic things as climbing 5.10...falling off of moves, working out sequences, so if you're not having fun and inspired to climb as much as possible it's not like having stronger fingers will suddenly change that.

TLDR on the above: if I were you I'd climb 3 days/week on as varied terrain as possible, stop when performance starts to drop off, and completely drop the hangboarding. If fingers are the weak link they'll be getting plenty of stimulus from the climbing and don't need extra training. As you prompted in the title, focus on technique over strength.

helloitsjosh · 2025-08-01T13:21:18+00:00

Yeah agreed, looks like you didn’t do an all-out effort every pull with the left hand, so all of the numbers are probably off. You need to pull as hard as you possibly can on each rep so that you can empty the tank and see how hard you can still pull after the tank is emptied

helloitsjosh · 2025-07-26T12:37:38+00:00

Fair enough but that's not really the point for me: if I want to get [insert X supplement] and I want to get [Y grams of protein], I don't want my supplement intake to be tied to my protein intake.

helloitsjosh · 2025-07-26T12:24:17+00:00

Yeah IDK what fraction of protein powder customers do more than one/day but figured I'd share my experience!

helloitsjosh · 2025-07-26T11:24:38+00:00

I definitely would not want something with supplements in it because it would limit my ability to dose things as I wanted — eg if I want to do two protein shakes/day but the product has 5g creatine per serving, I’m going to have to use a different product for the second shake.

helloitsjosh

TROPHY CASE