Deb Banerji is embarrassed.

A default setting for an adolescent, admittedly, but it is his discomfort at a potential portrayal as some pseudo-Spiderman that is provoking inhibitions.

The 15-year-old climber suspects a playground crucible awaits this morning upon his arrival at Dollar Academy. "I'm going to get abuse from my friends for this," he admits, pondering the ramifications of discussing his leisure pursuits in such a manner.

"Most people at school picture climbing as old men in woolly hats, with brightly coloured clothing, massive rucksacks and straggly beards. It's not a sport that makes people go wow' and there's certainly no glamour attached to it."

The extreme sport cognoscenti concur. Climbing, they claim, is too dull for a place in the X Games, their annual jamboree of danger. However, a quick consultation with Banerji would soon persuade them otherwise. A young man with a sharp mind, the Dunfermline teenager with the Indian heritage is the poster boy of the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena at Ratho, his status assured by not only his eloquence but also his overall victory in the 13-15 year-old age group of the British Regional Youth Climbing Series earlier this year.

That triumph burnished a dominance established within months of his introduction to climbing at the age of nine, after first clambering on the Ratho facility at a friend's birthday bash. Banerji recalls being conscious of how quickly he developed the requisite skills and the subsequent swell of pleasure, and he soon immersed himself working with Neil Busby and Neil McGeachy at the centre to hone his skills.

Those three or four nights a week are now complemented by strength and conditioning work that would leave even Hercules in need of a wee sit down. A couple of evenings of weight training and the mile-long run he takes daily are accompanied by up to 800 sit-ups and 200 push-ups a night. The discarded dumbbells at his feet are not just for show.

"Sometimes I come home after school and I'm tired and can't be bothered but the desire to become better drives me on," Banerji insists. "I think about all the work I've put in and how I would be wasting it if I were to ease off now. I like the physical aspect of it and having had a taste of winning makes me want to win more."

When distilled down, it sounds simple, but that belies the mental demands placed on competitors, which add complexity to an already daunting muscular challenge. Banerji, exhibiting a remarkable maturity for one so young, briefly opens a window to the attitude of a climber. Preparing the mind, it seems, is much tougher than preparing the body - especially when, without warning, acrophobia envelops the brain.

"As well as having to plan your way up the wall, you have also got the realisation that you're high up," he explains, shedding his initial reticence. "I had a spell when I'd advanced to more difficult climbs, where I became absolutely petrified of heights. When you're looking up from the ground it doesn't seem that bad but you become more aware of how far you're going to fall when you're up there."

Conquering that fear, as Banerji has done, is just one of several cerebral challenges athletes must face in a sport steeped in contradiction. Self-reliance and teamwork operate in oxymoronic synergy - particularly in lead climbing - where competitors fight an individual form of vertical chess with the wall while, at the same time, relying on a belayer - positioned on the ground, holding the rope - to ensure their safety.

Banerji enjoys that particular discipline due to the social aspect but seems more comfortable with bouldering, an individualistic pursuit performed without ropes but over shorter heights, demanding more strength than endurance. "You only have to rely on yourself, which appeals," he concedes. "Ultimately the responsibility lies with you and I've been brought up in an atmosphere that values that and I've been encouraged to do things myself."

Indeed, it is an attitude that he has applied to more than just his climbing. With the sport not financially viable as a career - "not unless you were prepared to have a pretty spartan lifestyle" - an alternative means of income must be identified.

Having just begun a diet of five Highers, Banerji has not yet chosen a specific career but insists it will be on his own terms, eschewing any opportunity that will decree him employee rather than employer. That theme of responsibility is one he revisits on several occasions, the broad strokes of his ambition already painted in his mind.

He is a young man with plenty of plans but, in the interim, he is prepared to settle for just one thing. "I'd very much like to try and help change the reputation of climbing," he says, bearing in mind the response that awaits him at school. "I want to prove that it's not all about those old men and their woolly hats."