Bouldering Zone

Two new mats coming in February

Shauna Coxsey on Zoo York 8A

Thanks to it's large landing zone, thick dual density foam core and great value online price Phud and Woomf have been our best selling boulder mats for many years. Now we have something new in the pipeline.. some new boulder mats that we are making right here under our noses in the UK. Production has now started on our first two models: Mujo, a hinged pad with rounded corners and a cool elasticated closure system and Waffa, a slim, closed cell foam satellite pad which will slot inside your Mujo, perfect for sit starts, traverses and circuit dashes.

Boulder mat comparison chart - get more perfoamance out of your pad

P Rating - We have devised the Perfoamance Rating 'P' to make it a bit clearer what you get for you money. Foam is expensive and the more you have of it the better. The P rating is simply the thickess in cm x the width x the length divided by the price. We think that anything over 1000 is pretty good.

A comparison chart of bouldering mats.
Brand Model Thickness (cm) Length (cm) Width (cm) RRP (£) P Rating
Alpkit Mujo
Alpkit Waffa
Alpkit Phud 10 130 100 80 1625
Climbing Factory The Ground Hog 10 130 105 128 1066
Moon Saturn 11 160 120 200 1056
Alpkit Woomf 8 100 75 60 1000
Moon Warrior 10 130 100 140 929
Snap Burrito 9 200 100 195 923
Climbing Factory The Crag Hog 8 85 122 90 922
Climbing Factory The Long Hog 6.5 84 240 145 904
Black Diamond Butler Pad 8 104 84 80 874
Red Chilli Taco 12 120 90 150 864
Cassin Domino 12 132 98 182 853
Metolius Stomp 10 91 121 130 847
Metolius Colossus 9 183 122 240 837
Snap Calzone 9 100 100 110 818
Snap Quarter Pounder 9 150 100 165 818
Moon Pluto 8 100 90 90 800
POD Crashpad 8 100 95 100 760
DMM Dyno 9 130 100 160 731
DMM Highball 9 130 100 160 731
Black Diamond Dropzone 9 104 122 160 714
Red Chilli Crash Pad 9 102 83 120 634
DMM Spot 5 105 80 100 420
Snap Pizza 3 75 50 35 321

The P rating by itself is a useful indicator however there are a few other things to consider..

More about bouldering mats

Foam Quality - Almost all the mats on the market use different layers of foam. The usual format is a layer of hard dense foam on top and a soft, squidgy layer underneath. The Phud crash pad uses two layers of the higher quality cross linked polyethylene, the top layer is Cross-Linked Closed Cell Foam - 45kg/m3, and the bottom is High Load Bearing Open Cell Foam - 22kg/m3. We find some people find our mats too firm, some people find them too soft.. that our mats are not firm enough.. it really comes down to personal preference. Firmer mats do have the advantage of being better on highball problems where a fall from 6 or 7 meters means you are far less likely to bottom out, the down side is that on smaller boulders you have a less comfortable landing.

Outer Fabric - most mats come in either polyester or nylon shells. We used thick backed polyester for a number of years so we know how good it can be, however we have recently upgraded Phud to Ballistic Nylon and 1000d Kordura. This combination of materials is a match for the most durable bouldering mats on the market.

Density - expressed in k/gm3 the higher the number the firmer the foam. Do you know how firm your mat is?

Crosslinked Polyethylene - Any decent boulder mat should be using this type of foam insted of the cheaper non crossinked.

Non Crosslinked Polyethylene - Used in the packaging industry and some cheap boulder mats (not ours though).

Design - there are many bouldering mat designs however three are very popular: Fold, Taco and Intelligent Taco. Fold, this has been around the longest so it is a tried and tested method. Then one day Metolius invented the diagonal hinge which made normal fold designs seem obsolete and dangerous. However if you ask most boulderers if they have ever bottomed out of a properly seated mat they would probably say they haven't. Once Metolius had this design then everyone else needed to come up with a different way, which resulted in the Taco. Although the Taco does give a marginal improvement in preventing bottoming out, it is bulkier when stored and can start to stress the foam a little as you are always bending the area that you will be landing on. Intellegent Taco designs use a continuous top layer of foam, but the bottom section is split so it folds easier. This is the design we chose for our more compact mat the Woomf.

Where to boulder

How many boulder mats does it take to use up your baggage allowance? Bouldering mats don't always make the best travelling companions but where there is a will there is a way. Here are some places you might like to check out.
MelloBlocco, Italy
Tout a Blocs, France
Fontainebleau, France
Castle Hill, New Zealand
Vaasa, Finland
Joshua Tree, USA
Albarracín, Spain
Targasonne, France
Annot, France
Val Bodengo, Italy

MelloBlocco Bouldering Festival Visit the festival site

Tout a Blocs Bouldering Festival Visit the festival site

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Cliffhanger

July 7, 2012
Sheffield, UK