[chillax]

UP-Grading?!  What is this blasphemy of which you speak?

[andy popp]

I just wanted to inject a little historical perspective before everyone runs away with the idea the older routes are dead easy and were (either wilfully or delusionally) overgraded. This is just an example I can draw on from personal experience, and not an attempt at bigging myself up. When I did the third ascent of TEOTA in 92 it had lain unrepeated for 6 years. The floodgates didn't suddenly open afterwards - I don't think it got another repeat for several more years. So, it hasn' always been a trade route. At the time I had a solid track record in onsighting grit E6 (going back to Fistful - mooted by some as E7 - in 1985), had onsighted one route now graded E7 (The Salmon), and headpointed, ususally with v. light practice a bunch of E7s. Basically I think I knew the score and the TEOTA simply felt harder than everything else, E8 in fact. If it goes down to E7 so be it but I think if it does we will require MASS downgrading across grit.

As evidence of old skool overgrading everyone is citing a) routes like Kaluza Klein, Salmon L Hand and Never Never Land - but these are all routes that it has long since been accepted were overgraded or should never have been upgraded (in other words the evidence being used is extremely selective) and b) the number of repeats something like TEOTA gets compared to certain other routes. But that's because it has massive cachet. Its popular because it is a brilliant route of massive historical significance. Are hordes of people being repelled by, say, Marbellous? I suspect it is tried very little. There must be many people perfectly capable if only they tried. It can't the absolute living end if I could sort out the crux on a quick ab many moons ago.

[Bonjoy]

I think I was trying to say earlier that e grades are wacky and even though they are in the main correctly assigned, the system allows for an unwieldy range of difficulty at some top grades. Not that routes have been mis-graded per se and need changing, though in the odd case this will probably be true.
I think in most cases upgrading a few things is more the way to go rather than wholesale downgrading. Grade compression at the E6-8 level seems to be a possibility. The sensible way to re-distribute is upwards where the knock on effect is only onto a handful of >E9s, rather than downwards where you get a knock on effect onto thousands of <E5s. It’s not as if E5 isn’t already the widest E grade in the box.
Anyway, i should shut up pontificating about routes I have practically no experience of really.

[andy popp]

Exactly

[stevie haston]

hello Bonjoy, I think you misunderstand me, perhaps on purpose. There is a great deal of difference between Gaie which should never have got the rep it did and some other routes. There is also a difference betwwen short bouldery routes and say a route like Ugly, & great deal of routes in britain could do with down grading. Improvements in pro has made a huge difference to some routes. Many of the classic E7s in wales are very solid now, and this is probably a good time to make that clear also. I pondered the question are British standards shit or not shit, because a lot of people are wondering, not because I am misinformed. In the area of France and Spain where I live, perhaps standards are as high as any in the world so I guess maybe I am being unfair. There are some very underated routes in Britain, we saw how basically the main stream had ignorred Birkit and his routes for a long time, there are a few people who need big upping and some routes also. There are also some routes which need a readjustment downward. I would be happy to meet with you and you could take me up a route or two, I am always willing to learn. Stevie

[Bonjoy]

The comment about you was very tongue in cheek. I forgot to use one of these -  .
I'm afraid that for all my talk I'm more of a classic E4/5 bagger than a gnarly E7/8 merchant. Just finding my feet on the trad again after mostly bouldering and sport climbing for the last few years.

[SA Chris]

I never have difficulty finding my feet in trad. They are normally the things at the end of my long quaking legs.

[Fiend]

Yes but can you see them from all the way up there??

[SA Chris]

Har har. At one point I couldn't, it was at that point I decided I needed glasses.

[stevie haston]

sorry Bonjoy, Iam a little pm today, couldnt get on my climb etc. I am always happy to be taught a lesson though and am very interested in these threads, I think a lot of climbs in britain and some climbers need reassing. S. Myles was a great example of a very good climber swept under the carpet, Ugly is obviously harder than Gaiea, End of the affaif etc. Mag azeens have interesting agenders that very rarely coinside with the truth. Font is very sternly graded dont you think. Just watched Malc on his wee problem at dumbee, he looked solid I hope there is more in his tank, he looks lean and mean, goodluck to all. Stevie

[simes]

Hello, you can be ashamed or not, its up to you. I am not only ashamed I am fooking mortified. I loved it when Jerry went to France and Spanked them, I cheered when Ben did the so aptly named Maginot Line, I dont like it when Brits come 33rd in Comps, I would prefer Onda to be an eastern bloc worker seeking employment in Sheffield  marrying a local girl and passing on some of the right stuff. You can feel that your not limited by being weak like some, you can pretend to be Mr Nice and not care that apart from Mclure we have no decent climbers but thats not me and thats not the feeling I got talking to lots of climbers in Wales. Ok its alot to do with people trying to sell stuff but the E grades are not based on what people can do onsight and yes we are very strong two inches above a mat.  There are beasts in Britain just like in most places, but why(Paul B) cant we have beasts who can boulder, do multi pitch, and do the occaisional run out route. I am sorry but if I could boulder as hard as some of you lot, I would have been straight on Rhapsody laughing my head off and willingly taking falls. I am amazed at the increadibly high leval of bouldering in Britain, but a bit shocked at how little is done with it. I am very aware of all the good or lets say potentialy great  climbers in Britain, but lets face it apart from Mclure and Ty(isnt he really a yank?) whats happening, the route in devon  and the one on the Ben may well prove to be very hard but at a lower leval visiters are doing very well. When Antoine LeMenestral soloed Revelations it was a very black day, and there havent been many sunny ones since, thats just my opinion, I am not jumping on a band wagon, I would be very happy for things to change. Tie onto that rope Ty. Stevie 

It sounds to me like you're being an arse.

What does it matter whether or not "they" are better than "us"?
You're making it sound like a football match.

You can be embarrassed about your own performance if you feel the need to,
but what others do or don't choose to do isn't really any of your business. Sorry. Si.

[simes]

The line has to be drawn somewhere but when one route gets 20 repeats (inc a couple of flashes) and another gets one or two (or none) in a similar time frame then we all know what the answer is.

Out of curiosity, has anyone any idea roughly how many ascents EOTA has had? Very roughly?

[Tommy]

The line has to be drawn somewhere but when one route gets 20 repeats (inc a couple of flashes) and another gets one or two (or none) in a similar time frame then we all know what the answer is.

Out of curiosity, has anyone any idea roughly how many ascents EOTA has had? Very roughly?

About 20+ people I know have done it, so I'm going to guess at 200 in total over the years. The most climbed E8 in the UK??

[robertostallioni]

Since when did you have 20 mates?

[Tommy]

Stallioni get back to that cellar board! 

See you at the weekend.

[Baron]

If you climb font 8b or whatever E8 should feel like E6. In the eighties the only person climbing font 8b was Peter Parker.

The routes haven't changed, we've improved.

[r-man]

From James's blog:

I met up with them at a very windy Curbar, shortly after Alex had made a flash ascent of The End Of The Affair.  In line with what I have said above, he was incredibly modest, and un-phased by this very news worthy ascent and told me, without a hint of snobbery or cockiness, that he felt the route was E6!

I thought of something Leo Houlding had said about how routes with a high historical value have been, and should continue to be, used as benchmarks for grading other routes by.  I asked Alex to assume, from a historical perspective, that TEOTA is E8 (the grade it has been for the last 22 years) and then asked him what grade The Promise would be in relation to this?  His answer was without hesitation – E10

Alex then said that the reason he and Kevin had thought The Promise not E10, is that they were under the impression that E10 and 7a were the limit of our grading scale – simply put, the hardest a traditional route could ever be.

More here: http://jamespearsonclimbing.blogspot.com/

[Ru]

If eota is still e8, the promise still e10, then is new statesman e11 as kevin thought it a grade harder? Someone must be wrong. 

[dave]

would it be blasphemy to suggest that visiting climbers who've done half a dozen select routes probably aren't best placed to estimate grades? am I the only one thinking this?

[Steve R]

I'm with you dave when it comes to allocating an actual number to the routes but, as grimer said earlier, it's insightful to see these guys rate the routes purely in order of how hard they found them.

[Steve R]

Anyway, didn't they get out again yesterday?  Conditions were pretty good yorkshire way, don't know about the peak...

[grimer]

maybe, but surely, having done these routes in quick succession, free from a lot of the historical gravitas that sometimes you need to overcome on a British trad route (I think). 

eg. for years, people said that you can't fall onto the flake on Parthian. I said it, and i believed it, even though i had no knowledge of it. Seb had to overcome that 'knowledge' which would have made his ascent more dificult than those who follow. Early repeats of big, mythical routes  have to overcome legend too. See what JD says about Rock and Ice routes in Best Forgotten Art. In the same way, JD's routes had a huge aura, and that would need to be overcome, I imagine.

And that difficulty is real, surely, as it means that there are move things standing between a climber and success. In the same way as doing a first ascent is miles harder than doing a repeat. Isn't that why great climbers do FAs - or even first ground-ups - and others amass repeats. Isn't that, perhaps, why routes can get downgraded from FA grades. Because for the FAist, it is realy hard?

But still, perhaps now the aura of some routes have diminshed, and doing one of these routes is actually easier? Has a change in time now not mean that in 2008 it is easier to do EotA than it is to do Slab and Crack, even though the original grades suggest different?

And these americans are free of those burdens, and maybe these routes come with different footnotes. The footnote to Parthian is that the flake is bomber. The footnote to EotA is that endless punters have headpointed it. If you're shit hot, you know you can flash what a punter can headpoint (incidentally, by punter, i mean the me's of this world, not AP).

You might think that the yanks know nothing about grades, but they will know how hard the things they have done will stack up against each other.

[dave]

And these americans are free of those burdens

but are they? Ok they'd not been to the crags before, but have probably seen Hard Grit, and could well have read the same articles, seen the same websites, read the same guidebooks as locals. I know the american stereotype precludes this, but I bet they haven't lived in a bubble until now.

[stevie haston]

hello Simes I sent you an Email but also decided to drop you a note here. Dont call people or me an arse just because they have a different view to you, there would be no point to forums or any discusion if they just decended into children calling each other arse. People calling each other names for no good cause is one of the reasons there are so few interesting people with views on here. If you do want to keep calling me names have the good grace to put your full name at the end of your message. Stevie.

[Bonjoy]

I agree with everything you say there Stevie, except for the bit about "so few interesting people with views on here", which even if true, is essentially broadly targeted mud-slinging.