[north_country_boy]

Abarro - the difficulty of placing gear can go in the French grade - Parthian was described as 8a+ climbign but 8b to place the gear.

I wouldn't say placing the gear adds anywhere near a full half french grade on Partheon, its more hard 8a/8a+ than 8a+ and you place the gear from what could be described as a matchable 'jug' with a heel on the flake obviously with the gear placements racked and organised to go in quickly........its not the making or breaking of doing the route by any means.....

[Fiend]

Fiend - So you think in my example, the new grade system would be "applauding an improvement in style" by crediting climber B with the E grade??

I'd say, as your (somewhat polarised, but a fair point) example is designed to show, it's all pretty grey - so how can you allocate a black and white grade transition (whatever -to- E) based on that??

I think both of those are an improvement in style over full-on headpointing in their own ways, as to which is better it's comparing apples and pears, that's why I think all improvements should be applauded without actually drawing a line in the sand.

(I mean okay you can have the absolute pure on-sight flash which is great but there's so many variations below/before that that deserve some credit, it would be churlish and unrealistic to have such a cut-off point).

[Bonjoy]

It seems a lot more clear cut to me! I'd say, in my example climber A, who is not considered to have ground-upped the route because of the unavoidable abseil cleaning and will, despite flashing the route, therefore be lumped into the headpoint box, has in reality made a hugely more stylish ascent than the so called ground-upper B, who has done the route with loads of falls and loads of beta.
The point is, this new system does nothing to distinguish between a good style/bad style headpoint/ground-up. There are plenty of circumstances where a a ground-up can be several steps behind a headpoint in style. Ergo is there much point in the new system if it doesn't do what it's invented for?

[Pantontino]

So, Bonjoy are you are prepared to ditch the whole concept just because there is potential for a lack of clarity in a what will surely only be a very small number of cases?

To state the bleeding obvious once more: all ascents in whatever style are open to fudging, boundaries blur, real life doesn't always fit into nice neat categories. However despite this the number of times that this would be actually become an issue would be - in my opinion - miniscule. Basically, if a route is done in the general spirit of the ground up prinicipal it would warrant an E grade. I really don't think people are going to be as keen to bend the rules as much as you suggest, at least not just for the sake of it. If rules get bent it will be because the nature and condition of the route pushes the outcome in a certain direction. I seriously doubt that the perverse Climber B scenario would be a common phenomena.

Even on crags were most first ascents have been done in the 'abseil cleaned', but no top roping style, subsequent ground up repeats have normally occurred very soon after. Thus the supposed big issue of a blurred definition is very quickly eliminated.

[Bonjoy]

Maybe. I'm not so sure monkeypointing, whereby you get some poor stooge to do all the cleaning and beta gathering for the intrepid ground-up hero, wouldn't become popular if the first e-tick become a highly coveted accolade. Perhaps this is more of an issue on the grit.

[Danny]

E12 7a?  Absurd.   Was E11 consolidated?

Just how far can 7a be stretched?  If well protected 7a is E4 (Vlad the Arete - Dinas Bach, for example) how many degrees of danger can one allow before it (the system) crumbles? 

Which in a way is my whole gripe with the British system.
Vald the arete is quite perfectly described by two characters: V and 8 (plus perhaps? ) - I don't know many "E4" climbers who could get up it. "British 7a" includes moves that I have a fair chance of working on and those that I can't touch.

I don't think anyone else in the world that has a problem with applying a 'normal' grading system (Oz, States, French) to a whole multitude of styles of rock and climbs - and yes, that includes bold adventurous trad.

Looking at a supertopo guide, at the grade conversion chart, the British system is, at best, confusing, and in reality a bit of an embarrassment IMO.

I certainly don't have an issue with onsighting lack of kudos / headpointing glorification, I couldn't care less.
I just find french grades a whole lot more informative all round - clearly I'm not alone.
If the E grade is totally suitable then why are french grades starting to crop up in guides, F&RCC for example, and why do we have whole threads on cocktalk about the french grades of classic trad routes?
People seem to want the information. But why? If the E grade is as informative, as some would say, then what use is this extra information?

[JohnM]

Vlad the Arete isn't 7a anyway!  British tech grades are designed to grade the hardest move encountered on a route.  The hardest individual move on Vlad is probably 6c. The fact that is has a sustained sequence of 6b/6c moves doesn't make it 7a.  I suppose this is where a bouldering or possibly a french grade would be useful giving more information on the overall difficulty.

[Houdini]

Vlad the Arete isn't 7a anyway! 

This is opinion not fact. And I think V8 is a wee bit silly considering the position/landing/historical style of ascent.  V8RX?

I've nothing more to say about E12, seems a rarified concept to me.  I wonder just how far technical grades can applied   over all.  Where do you cap their use along the E scale?  Like Haston I don't see how they can be applied effectively (in the upper reaches of our system). 

[Sloper]

It wasn't that long ago when E5 onsight was a rare beast and E6 was more likely than not a headpoint.

Times passed, things changed, people moved on.

On a tightening curve, climbers are getting better faster now than ever before, and what's a headpoint now will soon be a ground up classic, before being a onsight tagret a while later and a route for the masses in the long term.

sic transit gloria mundi.

Let's keep the E grade as to be honest I think it works better than any other grading system.
(ps I haven't read the whole thread)

[Danny]

Vlad the Arete isn't 7a anyway! 

This is opinion not fact.

Grades are never fact.

But anyway, the point is V8 describes what you can expect physically quite well, better than 6b/c/7a at any rate.

[RichK]

It wasn't that long ago when E5 onsight was a rare beast and E6 was more likely than not a headpoint.

Mmm, I think E5 O/S are still pretty rare. The logbooks on the other channel show 0.5% of all routes logged being E5 but that doesn't necessarily mean they were o/s'd. Conversely, the entries between  6c+ - 7b account for 14%. There's plenty of strong people but not many putting it to use on E5's. Obviously all do not use the logbooks BUT its probably a reasonable measure.

I suspect that there was more E5 o/s'ing going on 20 years ago than there is now

 

[n_man]

I think if anybody is unsure of how E grades convert to sport grades check out 8a.nu and look at the info from the last couple of days to clear it up, cocktalk gets a mention as well