Fixed training boards have been with us for over 30 years and were a staple of climbers homes for a long time. Relatively cheap to build, often called 'Cellars' as they were built in the basements and cellars of old houses in the north of England.
Simple plywood structures with home made wooden holds preceded all modern training boards and bespoke wooden hold manufacturers. Now, thanks to the growth in climbing and the sheer number of people wanting to spend those dark, damp evenings in their cellar, getting stronger for the return of the sunshine and the start of the outdoor climbing season.
Britain, with its combination of very wet weather and very fanatical climbers, went on in the 1980's and 1990's to produce some of the strongest climbers on the planet.
Sheffield soon became the centre of this type of training and the now legendary School Room really put indoor training on the map. Now, many years later, the School Room has been recreated in a small industrial unit after the local council took back the old Victorian school that housed the original.
This School Room was the original home to the concept of the Moon Board. In fact, the first prototype was added to the School Room during its last days in operation. It is very similar to the prototype training board we built at Rockcity gym in 1994, which had a steel frame and was 8ft x 12ft with a 12" kickboard sitting at 40 degrees. We accept that our design was probably an inspiration to Ben Moon who had climbed on it long before the Moonboard was created.
The Moon Board was a good idea, a shared community connected by a web app, sharing climbs across the earth, the true home of the Benchmark to test yourself against.
Eventually the Moon Board was equipped with LED lights, to show the holds that were in each climb. Prior to that, the Moon Board had 'battleships' style grid coordinates to identify each hold by location.
This simplified the need to memorise the holds for each climb which previously was done by numbering each hold and then writing a string of numbers as coordinates for the route to the top. It took a while for the training board to get really any more technical than the early very basic boards in peoples houses.
The Moon Board was designed to be small and fit into peoples spare rooms, cellars, lofts or garages. 12ft x 8ft, with a 12" kickboard, fixed at 40 degrees. This was an exact copy of the first training board we ever made at Rockcity back in 1994!
The two main drawbacks of the Moon Board were the holds and the holds. Firstly, the holds were sharp and made from textured resin. This was brutal on your hands, the skin and the fingers. The second drawback of the holds is that they 'eclipse' the LEDs when you climb above them. There is a certain irony that the Moon eclipses itself, often referred to as the Eclipse Board for that reason.
Moon built up quite a following and with the introduction of the free standing Moon Board, actually designed by us here in Hull and with the panels and frame being made at our third party manufacturers. Often taken for granted, this simple frame was completely free standing, no fixings to the wall or floor, we are still proud to have pioneered this frame. With its oversized hexagon bolt heads joining the two side parts, this has been borrowed by almost everybody who has since made a metal frame for training boards.
It was clear that although a great starting point, there was still a long way to go with training boards and a great commercial opportunity was waiting to be filled. Enter Kilter Grips!
When we first saw the prototype Kilterboard we were impressed. The two main issues with the Moon Board had been addressed, the LEDs now haloed the outer edge of the hold, so that you could see it from any angle. Also the holds were well designed and ergonomic, the polar opposite of Moon's creation. The size was larger too. 12ft x 12ft, so 50% more wall, a taller kickboard and very comfortable, generally larger nice soft feeling PU holds.
The critics said it was no Moon Board, it was too easy. This in our opinion was its strength. Kilter had created a commercial training board, suitable for more people. More people equals more popular and now, almost every commercial climbing gym has one.
We volunteered to make an adjustable frame for Kilter. This was the icing on the cake, making it move, change angles, gave so much more and fortunately Ian Powell's skill in shaping climbing holds made sure the holds worked across the full 0-70 degrees of travel.
However, not without some niggles. That kickboard! Why are there no foot holds below 2ft? Every climb has a ridiculously high starting foothold, even at 70 degrees. We think it should have had additional rows filling the vast blank space below the starting footholds.
It's clear that the design was to allow a shortening of the kickboard to 12" to make it possible to fit it into smaller, shorter spaces and the home environment. But the short kickboard doesn't allow anyone to get to the base of the wall to start climbing when extended over to 70 degrees. Really, in our opinion, it should be one of the other, you cannot be a master of all.
Then along came COVID-19, so all the climbing gyms were forced to close and so the home training wall was once again king. We spent our time designing and building custom Kilterboards to fit spaces that really couldn't have a regular version. So, we installed Kilterboard frames and panels we had manufactured in the finest town houses, manor halls, climbing gyms and skyscraper office blocks across the UK, into Europe and even in Moscow.
Moon was now the product to be selling, as Kilter now rushed to make their rival for the Moon Board, the Homewall versions. With add-ons, extensions, reductions, there was soon a Kilterboard Homewall for any space, even smaller spaces than the Moon Board. This time Kilter had smaller, harder holds for this mini board and the difficulty of the board closed the gap with the Moonboard. Moon responded to the criticism of the Moon Board holds by doing a more Kilteresque set which had quite a challenging response when unveiled. Again, only our opinion, but if you like Kilter holds you buy a Kilterboard and if you like the gnarl of Moon holds, then you go hard with the Moonboard.
As these two brands had sold plenty of units worldwide it was obvious that everyman and his dog would jump on the bandwagon and offer a training board. Even now you will see many many boards all based on this original DNA at trade fairs and expos around the world. Another popular board is the Tension Board, this system mixes resin holds with some wood holds, trying to offer the best of both worlds.
In 2025 Walltopia released its Quantum Board, a whopping 15ft x 15ft that feels very much like a copy of the Kilterboard, but using their own holds from their own factory. Moon and Kilterboards both have huge communities and it will be hard for any new training boards to gain such a following without some major technological breakthrough, pushing the envelope into the next level. To top that, Walltopia have also made a 9m high auto belay adjustable wall, definitely a first of its kind. An obvious gap to fill but credit for getting it done.
All of the above have international communities connected by an app. Actually until March 2026 all (except Walltopia) were using the same Aurora App and LED systems.
Another alternative are woodies. AKA, training boards with wooden holds. This old school idea is actually the best to climb on for your skin. Wood allows fine friction without the wear and tear and that burn that resin gives your fingertips. However, the downside remains that none of the wooden hold makers have a common design and layout that can be shared internationally. Most have bespoke setups to suit the gym and the community is very local. This isn't a bad thing, as local boards get cult following.
April 2026 see's us reach another milestone in Training Board Apps for Climbing. The Kilterboard App scandal. The first time in history that something climbers had relied on and invested in with a huge community data pool has been taken down in a business legal dispute.
Now Kilter, having fallen out with Aurora are in a big legal fight, have now launched their own app, which is not quite finished and already has some really good features and when finished, will likely be the best app on the market (as of April 2026).
It seems the bust up has highlighted some issues over data control, software maintenance and ownership and basically, who has to pay for it to be maintained. It's likely that in the future you will need to pay something for the continued use of an app for it to be maintained, improved and continue to grow its database. Remember, you get what you pay for.
We won't get into the reasons why Kilter and Aurora have fallen out, the courts will decide their fate. But, it's clear that almost our entire climbing wall, hold and board industry relies heavily on third party producers and manufacturers. When everyone gets along then it can work and did for years. Now brands are realising that there needs to be a real separation between products. Almost all popular training board apps use Aurora. MoonBoard, Tension, So iLL and of course until very recently, Kilterboard.
This reliance is fragile and stunts innovation. One of Kilter's beefs with Aurora was that they wanted to add features to the Kilterboard app, but did not want to help develop these features for competing platforms. This means that Kilter had to grasp the nettle and get their own app. But, they never envisaged that they didn't own the IP on the collective data necessarily. Now the community is shocked and of course it transpires that Kilter issued a cease and desist on Aurora using Kilter logo and intellectual rights, so Aurora didn't really have an option but to take down the 'Kilter' board app to comply with Kilter's request. Perhaps Kilter didn't think it through or maybe wanted to force a conclusion to a quite drawn out battle. However, the war is yet to be won. I guess we saw it coming, the issues Kilter had with other third party partners, frame builders like Lemur and Rockcity, wanting payment to allow us to continue to be part of the system. Then the LED and control box shortage which saw for almost a year, no new Kilterboards getting shipped with the necessary LEDs and controllers. This was the start of the powerplay between Aurora and Kilter. Its interesting that Moon, Tension and So iLL have a flawless supply of LEDs and app function, so its clear that the clash in personalities and values between third parties will impact the delivery of products.
It seems inevitable that the future of climbing training board app development is for users to pay a subscription. This way, it can be maintained, hosted forever. It is clear now that board sales slow down and who is left to maintain the app when the cash slows right down. We expect this model will come out of the ashes of the Kilter debacle in the coming months or years. Its not uncommon for extra cloud hosting or storage of our personal stuff, photos and data. Storing securely your climbing log must have some value and I think Kilter has reminded a lot of their community that the continued free app and storage shouldn't be taken for granted.
We have come a long way since the dark damp evenings in the 1980's, but we still have a long road of development and discovery ahead of us. Who knows what the state of the art will be, we will have to wait and see. Everyone has borrowed something from a predecessor and so the future will be shaped partially from what we can already see and climb on today.