Parthian Climbing — Attraction in Reading

An honest review after 2 years of climbing here, acting as an amalgamation of numerous climber's issues with the place. I'm not an angry troll, and still climb here weekly as I have no other choice. After living all over the country, this is the worst gym I have ever had the displeasure of calling my local.

It's expensive for what is on offer, and continues to increase in price despite no changes to facility. The staff are indifferent towards you at best, and are rude or ignore you unless you are climbing 8a+ or in their clique. They only seem to care about the kids they teach, as this is no doubt where most of their money comes from. Not a welcoming or pleasant environment from people that depend on repeat customers.

The bouldering area is tiny, and the actual setting is pretty bad and incredibly boring. Each grade utilities the exact same holds every set, usually in the same place on the wall, with no overlap of the distinct holds between grades. For example the Reds are exclusively huge slopey holds, and these aren't found in any other grade. This makes for incredibly dull and uneventful climbing and route resets, as surprise!, it's just the same route with the same holds in a slightly different layout. I don't think I've seen any new holds (excluding the comp wall) in the 2+ years I've been here. Where is our money going? Most of the routes are also set by the same people, who have a distinct climbing style and thus force everyone to adhere to their preferences. This gym will not help you develop technique or give you a range of abilities.

The lead area is significantly bigger with better climbing, but again not amazing. If you aren't doing everything 'correctly' by the staffs standards (even if you're an experienced climber) they will talk down to you and treat you like a child, all whilst you are actively belaying which poses an even greater risk than not following their 'rules'. The setting is also very samey, and gets changed incredibly slowly.

Their Covid precautions are also non-existent since they were allowed to reopen. 3 hand sanitiser dispensers were installed and filled at the start, and have been empty ever since. Masks are 'mandatory', however they do not enforce this or care when you raise that a lot of people aren't wearing them. They have also not cleaned their holds once, even during the height of covid, or during the break of being closed due to lockdown.

This gym seems more like a way to generate money than a place that actually cares about its customers or providing a good place to climb. Venture a bit further out of Reading for a life-changing climbing experience at another gym, which makes this one seem like a shack.

These are issues that most locals I have spoken to agree with, and could so easily be addressed! But nothing has changed in the years I've been here, so don't expect it to now. Climb here like me if you must, but know what you're...

I would like to add some of my own experience, following with a previous negative review.

The route setting for bouldering, as mentioned by the other negative review, has huge variations between different colours. For example, yellow ones are almost exclusive to juggy holds which cannot be found in any other grades. Blues are mostly sloppy-ish holds and reds are mostly big slopers. Although there is an attempt in creating a (sort-of) similarities between grades, in general different colours are done in very different ways. This makes progression incredibly difficult - a technique used in one grade will def not going to make into the next grade.

What make things worse is how bouldering route resetting works. Each week one colour will be stripped off with new ones coming up, and next week it's going to be another colour. This makes one grade staying in the wall for really, really long time. If you were a V6 climber who's able to climb 80% of all boulder grades, that's great since there will be new things every week. However if you were a newer, V3 or V2 climber, you will have to stuck with your whites and yellows for over a month to have any new things coming up. Because how different colours applies different set skills and techniques, do expect slow progressing because the thing you've learned for yellow ones does not translate into orange or blue, at all. Also, as mentioned in another review, when there is a route reset, 30% to 40% of them will be exactly the same feel with slight variations. Why not adding different volumes on walls to create sort of variations on wall features? Why not introducing some rope holds in the bouldering area? Why not introducing some easier crack problems? I understand purchasing new holds might not be the optimal option sometimes, but there are lot more things that can make things more interesting.

Also, the rope area. There is a constant route-reset, which I do appreciate. However if you don't have a constant climbing partner and have to stick with autobelays, expect another four months wait for anything new showing up. There are some entry-level routes that's been up there for nearly 6 month from now. The rope routes are better, but also suffers from a similar problem - a large proportion of rope routes have nearly the same kind of crux moves happening at the same location (where the wall 'leans out' for a overhanging bit), and usually they are a slight variation of the previous routes. There are interesting ones, but a lot of them are too similar to tell a difference from.

As a regular, I constantly feel that there's not very much left to do, since I don't have a regular partner and could only climb middle/lower grades. Staff are very friendly, and I sometimes feel...

Reading is one of the best walls in the area and totally worth the 2 1/2 hour drive from Dorset. The quality and selection of routes are good, especially those with big volumes which make it more interesting than most walls. However, on several occasion during our last visit the same member of staff continuously berated our group about belaying safety and appropriate use of climbing knots, keeping in mind that we are a group of highly experienced climbers with numerous climbing and high ropes/rope work qualifications and that we are registered with the wall for a number of years now. While it is obviously important that members of staff ensure safety among climbers it seems curious that the member of staff focuses on experienced groups while ignoring dangerous behaviour (climbing above one another, wrong use of ATC devices, etc.) on wide display during our visit. It doesn’t need to be said that this obviously left us with a bitter aftertaste after an otherwise good day...