Lab Notes

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you could do a hinge that slants at an angle? Have you thought about loops at the corners or something so you could teather the mat to stop it sliding about?

Personally I like the harder mat. With some you can turn them upside down so that the harder layered foam is against the ground giving a softer landing pad. Is this an option or does it compromise the design to much? i.e. I would rather have a mat that works well doing one thing than one that tries to do two things badly.

Rubber backed nylon being slippy on grass has been mentioned before and the jury is out on its pros and cons. I am coming to the conclusion it is best avoided in this design as there is better tried and tested cordura’s around.  Had a good couple of sessions with a sample mat now with several foam combinations and the jury is split. Some like it hard and some like it soft. Thin muliple layers allow the mat to fold around the foot on landing which isn’t as effective as thicker less adaptable layers. The hinge was going to be basic flat hinge allowing the mat to be easliy folded but we have come up with a cunning design that we are going to test soon.  Some photos of our exploits will appear shortly.

if the base is rubber backed nylon, will it be slippy or grippy on wet grass? how cheap would replacement foam be for cheap foam? compared to total cost of cheap and expensive mats? prefer hard mats to softer, i.e. pod, franklin size fine, hows the hinge flat, angled or run through stiff foam on one side? cheers p.s at that price i will have 2

We are off climbing at the Nottingham Climbing wall tomorrow (12/01/2005). We will take the mat and trial different foam configurations, come and join us if you want and you can skive work in the morning.

Good point Ken, there are already standards for gym mats both in Europe and USA. I have spoken with some lecturers at the University of Nottingham and they are keen for some students to run some projects on boulder mat effectiveness. The results of this would only be at undergraduate level but should prove an interesting start point. You have to be careful with any testing system as I found out when getting our sleeping bags TOG rated at Leeds University. There are atleast three different testing standards for sleeping bags, all generate a differing results!!  The main difference when choosing a mat is the quality of foam used, many of the original and cheaper mats use the lower grade non cross linked foam. Probably the worst thing you could do with this type of foam is sleep on it, as is suggested by many manufacturers at the moment, as this will only speed up the degradation of the foam.  Our glossary, soon to be online, lists the vary types of foams available, together with their pros and cons

There is a good review of boulder mats on http://www.climbing.com/equipment/214pads/ I guess one of the problems we face when choosing a mat, despite some good reviews like these, is that there are no standards by which we can compare them.

If you do a boulder mat, can you call it the BFM…..BIG FAT MAT so i know what im getting