Bouldering Project - Somerville — Attraction in Somerville

To the owner comments below; I personally already sent you email correspondences twice about the issues we had to which you gave us a very generic and corporate response that was devoid of any understanding for the issues at hand. I will not reach out again, all your comments seem incredibly performative.*

I took down my old review and wanted to give an updated one after the last time we spent at this gym. My friend and I recently just cancelled our memberships with BPS and we have many thoughts on the gym.

Pros:

Very large and modern facility with lots of emmetaties (Full gym on the second floor, working area with free wifi, yoga rooms, full showers with lockers and changing facilities). Well kept and clean space. Plenty of options for climbing on both rope and bouldering. Lots of events and chances to meet people. Free private parking lot and plenty of bike parking. Right next to great food/drink and very close to Union Square. Route setting is consistently kept up with for bouldering. Kids are regulated extremely well. Well staffed so you can usually find assistance whenever needed. Clean showers and bathrooms. Best hours of operation of any gym in the area.

Cons:

Expensive in the area considering there is only 1 location. $140 vs. $90 in other places. Not beginner friendly. Gym caters more to skilled college age students. Route setting for beginners and intermediate climbing is either way too easy or way to hard. It also gets really repetitive. Auto-Belay is nearly fully neglected. Routes go unchanged for far longer than their top rope, lead and bouldering counterparts. Wooden walls making for poor foot placement and increased slipping. Not a lot of variations and offerings for climbing classes. Relies mostly on private 1 on 1 classes. Gym is very crowded during normal hours and off work hours. Parents with baby cribs and strollers hanging out under top rope and lead climbs is unacceptable. Very clique crowd of younger climbers that hog areas during change weeks. Some climbs are completely inaccessible for hours as they get chain climbed over and over. Staff plays favorites with certain climbing groups and particular social groups/lifestyles. Some staff is very unfriendly and non-personable. My partner had a horrible experience with a top rope class with one of the instructors here and it ruined her interest in climbing with how she was treated for the instructors mistakes.

After going there upwards of 2 times a week for 6 months, we decided this gym is not for us, and in all honesty, really made us dislike climbing as people who are trying to really grow with the sport. BP does a really great job building up climbers who already have established higher skills levels, but neglects those trying to pull themselves up in the earlier stages. Considering there are a lot of young, LGBTQ+ working class people in the area who love to climb and are very skilled, that's probably by design to keep those out of the club who aren't as serious as them. It's a very serious gym for very serious climbers most of the time. That can be good or bad depending on who you are as a climber.

Our friends and I both agreed that BP, for how flashy and modern it looks, is a pretty boring gym to climb at most of the time. The last time BP had a wide variety of really fun climbs was over 4 months ago after their last membership competitions. No climbs since then on any of the walls has even come close to that month of climbing, especially for less skilled climbers. For the price tag, we don't think it's worth it for anyone climbing lower than a v4 or 5.9+, and if you want to do more than just boulder.

I'm sure I'll stop in a couple of time in the future since I have some free guest passes to keep things fresh, but if you are a new climber, or want more fun out of your climbing with a less serious attitude, I would...

The gym is one of the best located and most convenient climbing gyms in Boston with a very kind front desk staff and some very comfortable chairs in their lounge spaces. That’s about the end of the nice things I have to say when it comes to the bouldering project (formerly known as Brooklyn boulders but still under the same hapless management). The problems with the gym are numerous; one of the major ones is the over-enrollment of the gym and frequent closing or altering of hours for their youth teams or competitions that most of their climbing base doesn’t utilize. If you go during any kind of a peak hour at the gym you will find long lines of people waiting on the edge of the bouldering area downstairs and upstairs, the ropes climbing walls are slightly less occupied (probably due to the lack of belay certification time slots and issues with having staff available for those tests) but still for the beginner to novice level walls there will be a line. This would lead you to use some of their fitness equipment while you wait for it to slow down right? Well guess again! The fitness area is also overcrowded and the downstairs racks are even reserved on weekdays during the hours of 5-7 for the youth team (even if they aren’t using it- still reserved). Once you find a place to get your workout started- you might find it hard to get into the workout because the HVAC system isn’t working currently and has had issues since the pandemic began. Nothing like a hot gym in the summer! If the heat is for you it might be your spot but you can’t step it up to the next level as the Sauna isn’t in working condition either. The general manager of the gym has made it known that they are “working on” getting the funds for the sauna and HVAC system but that they haven’t been able to fix it or secure those funds in the last year. They promised to be working on these issues after the switch from BKB to the bouldering project but have yet again fallen short of their promises with no work done and the GM non responsive to email questions about the process and when they might actually get the gym fixed and in working order. The classes offered are starting to come back to the prepandemic level but still only offer small numbers of yoga or fitness classes with those slots generally filling up really quickly for any kind of popular time. This is all while being the most expensive climbing gym in the greater Boston area with memberships being $135 a month. If you are looking for a climbing gym to commit to I would much rather join Central Rock Gym or MetroRock as they keep their facilities up to date and cost less than the bouldering project. Giving two stars because the staff is really nice and the people are the gym are generally great- the gym is just overpriced and underfunded. Too many problems they need to fix and it isn’t fair for a company that charges this much to ask their members to wait (18+ months on the sauna and over a year on the...

EDIT August 9 2023: They have just increased their prices by THIRTY (that's three zero) percent. Day pass with rentals will cost $40+ now. New ownership seems intent on enshittifying what was once a great gym. Going from 5 - 3 stars.

Original Review:

It's a corporate mega gym with all the benefits and drawbacks. Expensive, but worth the price. They are actually expanding their facilities, which is a good sign and keeps me wanting to pay dues. Go at off hours if you are a serious climber, oversubscribed horrendously otherwise.

The good: If you are new to climbing, this is a great place to get started since they have lots of space to try everything out. If you are an experienced climber, they reset frequently enough that you won't get bored and they have the best accessory equipment of any gym I have ever visited (weights, kilter board, hangboards, etc.). The hours are AMAZING. The only gym I have ever seen that opens early, great for climbing before work.

The bad: Basically turns into a daycare on the weekends with unsupervised kids running all over the place. Get there early if you want to get a decent session in. Expensive, just like the rest of Cambridge. Day pass with rentals was almost $30. Circuit grading on the boulders (though you might not care about this one): Most climbs are all crimps, all pinches, etc. with no variety. Sometimes you will endlessly project a V3-5 and then flash the V6-8 right next to it. Some of the climbs are just egregiously reach-y. Thankfully with so many boulders set you can always find something to work on, but it's annoying regardless.

Unrelated to the actual facility itself - this is the SINGLE CHALKIEST gym I have EVER climbed at. Seriously, there are other gyms in the area that have those bulk bowls of chalk out in the bouldering area that are STILL less chalky than this place. People just layer it on here and I have no idea why. Routinely have to brush holds that are just caked in a thick layer of chalk to the point that they have zero texture....