Does anyone know of any decent finger crack training options in London?
I specialise in crack climbing but it has got to the stage that to move up the grades any further I either have to climb extremely overhanging hand/fist cracks or climb properly parallel sides thin cracks. I can do the former but not the latter. The best solution would be to build a crack trainer at home but the small matter of wedding planning rules that out in the short term.
I’m thinking along the lines of “there’s a really good finger crack half way up the X wall at the Westway” rather than “I’ve always thought the gap between the pillars at Westminster Tube station was a good finger width”. @dabarlow, @khalidqasrawi, @saclimber , @Liz_Fowler probably know the most walls.
Realistically I don’t think there is a venue with sufficient finger crack training stuff. There are some cracks at the Westway but these are being slowly replaced with ply panels. I’d suggest to pack your kit and head to Millstone and Lawrencefield. Or even better, quit work and bugger off to Yosemite. You’ll come back a crack expert.
As finger crack climbing is actually similar to pinch pockets (open pocket with thumb), I’ve always seen benefits doing this.
Some of the older walls have a crack still extant somewhere (at the castle for instance, there is at least one downstairs and unless it’s gone there is a hand crack at the Westway - not as many as there used to be, they got rid of the double overhanging cracks at the Castle), but don’t know of anywhere in London that has much of a training facility. You’ll just have to build your own: http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/crack-fix-how-to-build-a-home-crack-training-system and somehow find an excuse for that to be part of your wedding planning.
That’s exactly the kind of thing I have in mind in the long term John. That’s been my plan ever since I saw Wide Boyz.
In the meantime I think Rob is right, it’s going to have to be a few weekend trips to Millstone. That plus making ingenious use of the one crack at the Reach.