About Working Class

THE ESCAPE FAMILY
 

The Escape Climbing Family is obsessed with all things indoor climbing. Whether you’re searching for quality climbing holds, handcrafted volumes, or affordable bulk hardware, one of the Escape Climbing Family brands has what you need.

We exist as a company to enable the sport of indoor climbing. Our mission is to get every hand on a hold. We want to tear down the barriers of climbing by making our sport more accessible to anyone. By designing great climbing holds we hope to bring out the best in route setters, which in turn leads to a better climbing. By being a bulk importer of hardware we can drive down the cost of bolts and t-nuts which leaves a bigger budget for holds and makes building a wall affordable. By offering a wide range of training tools we give you that opportunity to take your climbing to the next level and push your limits.

At the heart of who we are, we believe in promoting a healthy lifestyle. Health is more than just fitness. Health entails a mental, and an emotional aspect as well. Climbing is a sport that is more than just fitness too. There is a mental aspect of climbing with the problem solving, and climbings social driven nature meets many emotional needs with our community bonds. Enabling the sport of climbing means we get to open up an avenue for happier, healthier, stronger people every time we ship a package from our facility.

Escape Climbing
Holds That Inspire, Hardware That Lasts, Training Tools That Work

At Escape, we're not just known for our holds and training tools.

We're also known as the go-to shop for all things climbing hardware.

Whether we're talking about the best selling climbing specific t-nut in the world (the custom Escape Industrial T-nut), the one of a kind two-in-one hex bit (the Duostar), or every routesetters favorite insert to turn any hold into a screw-on (the Lonestar), you can always be certain you're getting the absolute best hardware at the absolute best prices.

Click Here to Shop Escape Climbing Holds

Friction Climbing
Naturally Inspired

Emerging from the vibrant Toronto climbing scene, Friction started producing innovative shapes in the Fall of 1999. Ergonomically shaped and finger friendly, Friction earns its name for its unique design and texture. Today, Friction continues to push the limits of hold design, shaping realistic and aesthetic holds to keep route-setters and climbers motivated to pull on plastic.

Click Here to Shop Friction Climbing Holds

Kingdom Climbing
Big, Fun Holds
 

Kingdom Climbing was voted the #1 climbing holds in the world by the Climbing Business Journal for a reason. Fantastic shapes that beg to be climbed on. Produced in high quality polyurethane at both Aragon Elastomers and Comp-X!  

Click Here to Shop Kingdom Climbing Holds

Working Class Climbing
Holds That Work As Hard As You | Check Out Our Current Sale of the Month

At Working Class we recognize not every gym or home gym has a blank check to write for climbing holds. Working class lives up to its name by offering value and function to our hard working setters. You can always find a killer deal up to 30% off as a way to deliver high quality holds to the everyday setter. Our holds are not big unless it makes sense to be big, they are low profile where possible in order to keep material usage down. All of this helps Working Class sell the holds for as low of prices as possible and deliver the most value to you. 

Click Here to Shop Working Class Climbing Holds

Fusion Climbing
The Best of All Worlds

Legendary shapes reborn utilizing a revolutionary new dual texturing process that breathed new life into classic shapes that have been gracing climbing walls the world over for the past 20 years!

Click Here to Shop Fusion Climbing Holds

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More About Working Class Climbing

An Escape Family Brand. Proudly Poured at Aragon Elastomers and Comp-X.

When we first sat down to decide on a name there were lots of options and ideas, many of them that were better or perhaps made more sense at first glance. In the end though, Working Class embodied much of what we wanted to portray through and build into this new company’s identity. We want this to be a company that is respected by routesetters, climbers, and the rest of the people working day in and day out to make our industry all that it can be. And so Working Class Climbing is who we are…

I’ve been involved in this industry since its earliest days and continue to be. I own a gym, have been setting as long as anyone in our country, am a very prolific hold shaper, build gyms, and am constantly spreading myself too thin in order to be a part of it all. On top of that, I still do what I can to enjoy this thing called climbing that has been a huge part of my life for better than 40 years now. I’m part of the working class as well.

As the company becomes more established, you will notice that the people we use in our product videos and in other aspects of our marketing and promotions are not big name climbers, polished public speakers, or other folks that might be better choices from a sales standpoint – they are the routesetters that put in long hours making sure that we all have a good experience in climbing gyms. These are the people that keep everything rolling along and are often unsung heroes. We hope to change all of that and to shine the light on them a little where we can. They are 100% part of the working class.

Along with the setters, we have gym and home wall owners, and of course the climbers who will be pulling on our products day in and day out in an effort to improve enough to send their projects, whether indoors or outside. These people are all part of the working class that we hope to support and they are the ones that we will answer to in all that we choose to bring to market. We’ve made a couple of conscious decisions in our hold shaping. We promise to do what we can to keep our shapes as economical as possible. This means our holds will not be big unless it makes sense to be big, they will be low profile where possible in order to keep material usage down, and we will hollowback any shapes that make sense. All of this will be done in order to sell the holds for as low of prices as we possibly can, and to keep the overall weight of them down. This means lower shipping costs, but also means less work for the setters that are installing the holds on climbing walls. Theirs is a very demanding job and we want to do what we can to make that job easier and less tiring for them.

Our team is strong and we promise to do everything possible to stay true to our core ideals and to bring you a great product at a great price. If we ever miss that mark, please let us know – we’ll make it right and together we will all continue to support climbing’s working class, in all its forms.