Some of the essential gear you need to make that step like many climbers

Today we're going to be looking at how to transition from indoor to outdoor climbing now this show is designed for people at the beginning of their climbing career people who sport climb and Boulder indoors but want to take their skills to real rock we're gonna be looking at some of the essential gear you need to make that step like many climbers.

I started my climbing journey in an indoor wall in London I walked in and almost overnight it changed and took over my entire world now although I liked indoor climbing it wasn't enough for me I'd seen pictures of sport climbing and bouldering outdoors I wanted to learn the skills to get into the big mountains but to do that you have to start going outside now I reckon people skills play an important part in this process I'm going to assume that you've been climbing in a gym for a while and you're starting to get to know the people and that's the key ingratiate yourself into that community be eager to learn be humble and get to know the people who are going outdoors there's always groups willing to head off on a week handle and evening weekend session bouldering get in with those people so willing to learn and they'll help you on your way now you can join groups and there are courses which we'll chat more about in a minute but personally I reckon it's all about learning from the people around you a climbing wall is a little bit like a bar the more you go in there the more you talk to people the more people are willing to talk to you back now a good place to start is this book here we don't actually sell this on the epic TV shop but it's a fantastic place to start rock climbing I bought one almost immediately and it's a bit like a Bible because the problem with learning off other people is they're not always right people think they're right but often techniques and habits and bad habits come into play so you want to double-check what you're learning listen to multiple people read that book and get an understanding of what you're learning from the people around you.

So you found the group of people that you're going to learn from and you're outdoors let's say at sport climbing crag for the first time now before we chat about the gear you need we do need to look at the differences between your indoor wall and your outdoor crag now possibly when you start your climbing you've been top roping a lot of routes so you've got your climbing wall as a rope that runs through an anchor system at the top and you just tie into it your belay clips into it and off you go when you go outdoors that doesn't exist there isn't that gym style setup you have to build it yourself if you want to top rope now usually you can go around to the top of a crag and set up a rope and we're not going to go into anchor building and how to do that in this show and this is one of those things you need to learn from the people around you be very careful if you're walking around at the top of the crag because obviously you might fall off but also you can knock rocks onto people below and a quick sort of just hint if you're going to go top roping don't just sit on one route all day because it's unbelievably annoying for everybody else who turns up at the crag top rope a few times speak to the people around you and move on if necessary and find another climb it's all about a community kind of feel now we're talking about ropes so let's move on to the gear section of this because if you go outside you're gonna want your own rope sure you can borrow it from someone else but it's one of those bits of kit that is nice to own so most of the gear we're gonna be talking about the sort of the beginner the budget option and then an upgrade if you want to step things up a little bit.

As a starter rope I would recommend the tendon smart light nine point eight millimeter rope and there's really two things you need to decide the ropes the length and the thickness now generally for your first rope I would go for the 60 metre version of that rope it's kind of a good middle ground and it hits single pitch sport climbing single pitch trad climbing and you can use sixty meters in a gym quite easily the advantage with the tendon smart light is it's very simple but very tough and durable that 9.8 millimeter diameter means it will stand up to some abuse it doesn't have treatments so there's dry treatments that make the work rope from the waterproof but as a beginner you don't really need that you just want a workhorse.

The best advantage of that rope is it's only 82 euros on the epic TV shop so won't blow the bank what will blow the bank a bit more is a slightly thinner and lighter rope I use the tendon master at 9.2 millimeters and although it's only a few millimeters difference between those two ropes it does make a huge difference the tendon master is a lot lighter and a lot smoother through your belay plait it's also got.