[clgladiator]

How does your bouldering grade relate to routes, ive heard on like F7a being around V4, but wondered say if you can boulder up to Fb 7a what grade would this relate to in a sport route? (obviously i realise it will depend on the type of route)

[JohnM]

You have just answered your own question in brackets at the end there.  They don't directly relate to routes.  An 8a route could have no boulder problems harder than 6c on it but there would be lots of sequences which would merit this grade (i.e. a very sustained route).  Equally an 8a route could have a 7b crux but you would expect it to be much less sustained with a crux at this grade. 

[clgladiator]

good point! Ok, what about cruxy type routes rather than sustained ones? Say for instance you are not going to find anything harder than a Fb 7a move on a F? sport route.

[highrepute]

This is normally only available to guidebook writers but you seem like a nice chap so I'll let you in on the secret. Dont tell anyone

Equation to work out sportsgrades

F = exp((L/Fb + AI/S)/H+(NC/WR)^B)

We know Fb and L=length of route, AI=average climbers ape index,S=steepness (as a %) H=average climbers height, NC = number of bolts on route, WR=weight of rope (varies for length of route, obviously) and B=boldness(1 for most sport routes and 2 for routes where a bolt is missing or they look kinda old).

Hope that clears things up for you

[mrjonathanr]

Only applicable to bouldery routes mind, but I think +3 grades gives a very rough conversion from Font to Sport.
So font 6c+ is likely to be about 7b, 7a>7b+, 7a+>7c. I'm not saying it's highly accurate but it gives an idea.
As it's a bouldering grade no relevant conversion for longer routes.. someone told me the other week that The Mission had nothing harder than font 6b+/6c on it, and that's 8b.
Before you get too excited he also pointed out that it was essentially ALL font 6b/c.

[Sloper]

The bigger the number the harder it is, other than that there's no correlation.

[Zods Beard]

The bigger the number the harder it is, other than that there's no correlation.

Wow, I finally agree with something you say.

[mrjonathanr]

Agreeed there's no direct correlation (as I said) mostly because routes are graded for a variety of things whereas boulder problems are just that. However for routes which are essentially boulder problems -some grit, some peak limestone- what I said gives some sense of what standard you might be talking. Which is what the OP was asking.

[shark]

In the Self Coached Climber there is a useful comparison table on page 179 of the likely bouldery difficulty on a sport route but its in YDS and V grades. I made a stab on UKC recently at converting it to French and bouldering grades and factored in that the UK has a bit of a bias to gnarly shortness and tweaked it accordingly up to the limit of my experience.

To be clear the table is a guide to indicate the hardest moves or short section you are likely to encounter on a given sport route. I narrowed the range so it will not be totally inclusive so there will be plenty of examples of unusually cruxy short routes or with boulder problem starts or long pumper routes that fall outside either end of the range. The range is aiming to cover the majority of UK sport routes, say 9 out of 10 at any given French grade.

It was intended as an initial stab open to refinement. My experience of bouldering grades and bouldering is more limited than my experience of sport grades and I'm also guessing above French 8a+.

I plagiarised Dave’s universal bouldering system i.e.5a,5b,5c,V3,V4,V5,7a,7a+,7b,7b+,7c,7c+,8a...
As those operating at the lower sport grades will often be more familiar with English tech grades it made sense to reference them despite their faults, those keener boulders may be familiar with V grades from the BMC guides and the keenest will think in Font terms. Bear in mind that English tech grades are in theory for single moves and V and Font for boulder problems of say 3 to 7 moves. What constitutes a move is debatable.

What would you use this table for? (assuming it is accurate). A few things. For example, if your equivalent max bouldering level and max route levels don’t top out at the same level you have an indication of a weakness although a given individuals peak route grade is unlikely to exceed their peak bouldering grade (unless they don’t boulder or try hard when doing so).If your peak bouldering grade is font7a you are unlikely to redpoint 8a+ even a stamina oriented one. A balanced scorecard will provide a better basis to progress to the next grade level. However, the current fashion in the UK is to develop bouldering strength rather than route endurance and on aggregate we do not perform as well on routes relative to our max bouldering grade as to our Basque counterparts. That is a complete guess and I may be doing an injustice to Basque burl in which case I invite another example.

Anway caveats etc out the way....

6a English 5a-5b
6a+ English 5b
6b English 5b-5c
6b+ English 5b-5c
6c English 5c - 6a or V1
6c+ English 5c–6a or V1-V2
7a English 6a-6a/b or V2-V3
7a+ V2-V3
7b V3-V4
7b+ V4-V5 or Font 6b+ to 6c
7c V4-V5 or Font 6b+ to 6c
7c+ Font 6c+ to 7a
8a Font 6c+ to 7a
8a+ Font 7a+ to 7b
8b Font 7b to 7b+

[Norton Sharley]

not enough