Viva Brighton Issue #76 June 2019

MY SPACE
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Photo by Lizzie Lower
Boulder Brighton
James Gomez, co-founder
I set up Boulder Brighton with my friend
Tom. We started climbing together at
university, about 20 years ago. We felt that
Brighton was in need of a decent climbing
centre, took the plunge and started to get
this place built. We opened in 2013 and have
just celebrated our sixth birthday with a big
competition. In bouldering, competitions
are about the number of attempts. If you
can complete a climb first time, you get the
maximum number of points. More attempts
mean fewer points. We have fun events for
everyone to get involved with, as well as some of
the best climbers in the country coming down
to show their thing.
In bouldering we call the climbs ‘problems’,
because they are like a puzzle. They involve
complex moves, quite close to the ground,
where it’s not always obvious what you might
have to do. There might be a trick to it, or a way
of approaching the route that isn’t immediately
obvious. Bouldering used to be what roped
climbers did to train, but in the last 20 years
it’s become a sport in its own right. When I
started bouldering regularly, it was the mix of
the physical challenge and the mental problemsolving
that got me really hooked.
We colour code all the climbs. If you look at
the wall, there will be 20 different colours of
holds, but you need to stick to one colour to
follow a route that we have set. As route setters,
we’re trying to create climbs that flow nicely,
and that lead to a varied and interesting range
of movement.
The climbing walls are all built of plywood
which allows us to swap the holds around and
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