[andy moles]

I couldn't give a shit if people do press releases, provided they're a big hitter and not some wannabe. What I can't abide is the reporting that he's "got" the ascent rather than made the ascent/done the climb.

"Did you get that slopey blue problem?"
"Nah, I didn't get it."

How you must grind your teeth.

[MischaHY]

I couldn't give a shit if people do press releases, provided they're a big hitter and not some wannabe. What I can't abide is the reporting that he's "got" the ascent rather than made the ascent/done the climb.

"Did you get that slopey blue problem?"
"Nah, I didn't get it."

How you must grind your teeth.

Surely Will is firmly on dentures by now 

[teestub]

Except it's translated to impressive performances on internationally coveted things like El Cap too.

What are the British world class performances on El Cap from the 'lost generation'? I'm not really up on the big wall stuff. Have there been Caldwell level feats?

[remus]

Im not too up to date on the details, but I take it Leo Houlding and co's efforts in yosemite were pretty phenomenal for the time. Nearly onsighting El Nino etc.

[Teaboy]

John Dunne had a manager in about 1991, Chris Bonnington had a literary agent before that and, contrary to what it looked like, grades were as important to me back in the 80’s as they are to the wall bred scamps today.

[AMorris]

So the ultimate aim becomes to tick the highest possible number with the minimum amount of actual strength and talent.

What's the minimum amount of strength and talent I need to climb an 8B? Asking for a friend*.

*asking for me, I have no friends

[Teaboy]

Edit because of shitness of joke

[spidermonkey09]

Im not too up to date on the details, but I take it Leo Houlding and co's efforts in yosemite were pretty phenomenal for the time. Nearly onsighting El Nino etc.

I would imagine the reason this doesn't have as much cachet as it otherwise might is the word "nearly", cracking effort that it was!

[ferret]

Ty Landman was world class in that era, though moved to the US early in his career.

[SA Chris]

We should have a thread where we can discuss Will Bosi's achievements..

[jwi]

I might be confused about what is word class. I suggest the following for current performances

Men:
Sportclimbing: 9b+ redpoint, or old school 9b. 8c+ onsight. Top 3 in the world cup.

Bouldering: 9A or relatively fast ascents of 8C+. 8B+ flash. Top 5 in the world cup.

Women:
Sportclimbing: 9b redpoint, or old school 9a+. 8c onsight. Top 3 in the world cup.

Bouldering: 8C or relatively fast ascents of 8B+. 8A+ flash? Top 5 in the world cup.

[teestub]

Ty Landman was world class in that era, though moved to the US early in his career.

How old is he now? Feel that he’s more Varian’s generation (early 30’s now?) but was just v young when he was smashing it.

[remus]

I might be confused about what is word class. I suggest the following for current performances

Men:
Sportclimbing: 9b+ redpoint, or old school 9b. 8c+ onsight. Top 3 in the world cup.

Bouldering: 9A or relatively fast ascents of 8C+. 8B+ flash. Top 5 in the world cup.

Women:
Sportclimbing: 9b redpoint, or old school 9a+. 8c onsight. Top 3 in the world cup.

Bouldering: 8C or relatively fast ascents of 8B+. 8A+ flash? Top 5 in the world cup.

A little harsh for the women imo. Only 3 women have ever climbed 9b, and as far as I know only two women have climbed 8C boulder.

[Duncan campbell]

Im not too up to date on the details, but I take it Leo Houlding and co's efforts in yosemite were pretty phenomenal for the time. Nearly onsighting El Nino etc.

I would imagine the reason this doesn't have as much cachet as it otherwise might is the word "nearly", cracking effort that it was!

Could argue that is what’s wrong with climbing.

It was clearly a world class but of climbing. No nearly about it. Leo and Patch climbed a route that had just been put up by the Hubers with loads of practice in quick style with barely a fall.

[36chambers]

Significant rises in UK climbing standards occur in periods of economic hardship:

I imagine the most important thing nowadays is having parents/guardians that are willing to drive their kids to the wall and pay for entry.

[yetix]

Apparently Dan V has done Catapult which means he's now done every 8th grade boulder in the county, sounds pretty significant to me if true! (not sure if this includes link ups)

[ferret]

Ty Landman was world class in that era, though moved to the US early in his career.

How old is he now? Feel that he’s more Varian’s generation (early 30’s now?) but was just v young when he was smashing it.

Yeah he's 32 so not of that generation but was so good at such an early age that it seems comparable. I'm 45 and he was smashing the hardest stuff in the world when I was in my late 20's

[andy moles]

Except it's translated to impressive performances on internationally coveted things like El Cap too.

What are the British world class performances on El Cap from the 'lost generation'? I'm not really up on the big wall stuff. Have there been Caldwell level feats?

I was thinking of Leo and Patch but also of more recent stuff. Perhaps not of the 'lost generation' but demonstrative that British trad, although niche as jwi points out, has honed impressive performances outside the scary single pitch backwoods. Pete Whittaker coming as near as anyone had (has?) to on-sighting a big route on El Cap, for example.

Sorry if the lack of hard numerical data is leaving anyone unconvinced 

[remus]

Apparently Dan V has done Catapult which means he's now done every 8th grade boulder in the county, sounds pretty significant to me if true! (not sure if this includes link ups)

That's fucking cool and super impressive. You've got to be so well rounded to make something like that work, can't think of many other people in the world with that depth of experience.

I'd be really interested to know if it includes link ups and eliminates. Leviathan at Kyloe would be the biggie I imagine.

[Duma]

Apparently Dan V has done Catapult which means he's now done every 8th grade boulder in the county, sounds pretty significant to me if true! (not sure if this includes link ups)

Mental! (Although not as mental as how I originally read it, which was country!)

[Duma]

Also, how come Northumberland gets to be the county?

[remus]

Also, how come Northumberland gets to be the county?

Haven't you been before? Surely it's obvious!

[cheque]

A little harsh for the women imo. Only 3 women have ever climbed 9b, and as far as I know only two women have climbed 8C boulder.

Sorry if the lack of hard numerical data is leaving anyone unconvinced 

Sorry guys but once a thread’s featured a version of jwi’s Roy Keane-style “world standards”  lecture then no loser who’s climbed anything but the very highest sport or bouldering grade currently recorded can be mentioned. You know the rules. 

[Fiend]

A world class athlete these days needs to be a professional, and well, that means press releases and YouTube vids and agents and such.

But doesn’t the fact that one stuck up an Instagram post saying he’d done it accompanied by a goofy-ass thumbs-up pic and the other put out a press release on multiple websites and sponsors’ social-media accounts and them getting the same level of coverage show that you don’t need all of that?

I think that climbers getting sponsorship in order to make the most of their potential is great in instances where that potential is for world-class performance, which is what we see with Will and Aidan (it’s less great when that climber is a bland, personality-less husk possessed only of the ability to grind on social media and decent screen presence, but that’s clearly a matter of taste). What’s more, I’m not even arguing that pro climbers have to have monk-like existences where they subsist on the bare minimum and just train and climb hard; if people are able to go beyond that and not just train and climb full-time and maximise their potential but enjoy some luxuries, then (for what little my opinion matters) they’ve earned that through hard work and talent. Top-tier footballers have Lamborghinis and no one accuses them of selling out, so as far as I’m concerned if Will and Aidan can not just eat and train but get the pro-climbing equivalent (a tricked-out Sprinter, maybe some Gucci crag slippers?) more power to them. It's always seemed to me that Jerry made the most of sponsorship not just to keep improving as a climber but to have the lifestyle he wanted - that ‘fast cars and birds’ schtick - and I have no critique of that.

But what’s gross to me is the idea that sponsors are profiting from things like Aidan and Will’s phenomenal efforts by reducing those efforts down to numbers and presenting a distorted picture of climbing where the value of an experience is directly proportional to the grade and contingent on success, and those grades and success can be, if not bought, then approached via money. ‘Look how good Will is, and if you want to be like Will then take a look at our shop!’ And maybe all of this has always been the case and I’m simply idealising the past, dreaming up some golden age in which pro climbers sought sponsorship purely to push the boundaries of the pursuit because of their ascetic devotion to climbing, and climbers in general weren’t grade- and success-obsessed little toads like we all are today. But it feels like in the ‘good old days’ pro climbers made money from their climbing achievements through direct sponsorship or setting up a gear company or wall or whatever else (and yes, loads of people bought Firés because they thought that the shoes would make a difference but were still crap), but today there’s this additional layer of people making money from climbing by treating it more as a commodity than a thing that they care about, and that leads others to do the same.

They have no interest in the unquantifiable aspects of climbing because you can’t monetise those bits, and so reduce everything down to what can be quantified - grades and success - and they do that not so that they can spend more time climbing themselves but because they want more money and influence. Which is how you end up with people getting personalised, periodised training plans while they’re still on their first pair of shoes and coaches picking out projects for their clients and people with shit footwork spending more time on a fingerboard than rock or plastic - because telling people that they need to get better and simply put time in and work at it themselves and go out with their mates and have fun won’t make you money. And because climbing is a commodity so too are crags, as evidenced by YT videos with people doing challenges on wet rock or flouting access restrictions to film, and that trickles down: people climb on wet rock rather than just leaving and ignore access arrangements that limit climbing to certain days of the week or specify numbers of climbers because the whole reason they’re there is for the big-number tick, and crags aren’t parts of the natural world to enjoy being at but places where you cash in the success vouchers that you ‘bought’ with the money you spent on training plans and gadgets and the fuel to get you to the crag on the day, as well as the effort you’ve put into training in the past.

Maybe this comes across as completely histrionic and is a million miles away from the topic of Bosi doing an amazing bit of climbing, but I genuinely believe that a lot of the problems we have with access being withdrawn, over-crowding, erosion, litter, chalk being plastered, and so on have their roots in this mentality. It's not something that I argue Bosi is somehow 'guilty' of, but I think that press releases, agents, and the focus on grades above anything else in the media on this ascent are symptomatic of that mentality, and will contribute to worsening these problems because of how they shape how people think about climbing.

 

I definitely agree that this grade chasing mentality causes many problems at lower levels of the "sport" (do we have to call it that?). Ethics get eroded in the process—all these small "hacks" add up over time until you feel like the original challenge has been well and truly cheated around (stacking pads, obnoxious tick marks, damaging rock drying methods, contriving easier exits, etc. all get normalized instead of vilified). So the ultimate aim becomes to tick the highest possible number with the minimum amount of actual strength and talent. What happened to just having fun?

I think this objective of climbing the highest possible grade as the divine purpose of climbing may appear common-sensical these days, but I'm not sure it is. I feel like it's a capitalistic mindset to achieve quantifiable goals that has been ratcheted up over generations to the fever pitch state we're in now where nothing else apparently matters (in life in general too).

Two top posts. Although I do think - as evidenced further up this thread - that what the top dedicated climbers are actually doing and enjoying does transcend the bullshit that surrounds climbing performances / performance climbing these days.


Duma - comes from The Quiet County i think. Great effort carlisle slapper, I bet that's some very strong personal inspiration there. Cool one to finish off on too.

[Wellsy]

I think saying that people want to climb the highest grade they can because of some kind of capitalistic mindset is a bit silly tbh. I want to climb the highest grade I can because I want to try and fulfill my potential and feel like for once in my life I am genuinely good at something that is quite hard, it is a personal journey, a discipline if you will.

Also I find the idea that people back in the day weren't driven by grades to make little sense; Ben and Jerry? Even of this parish, I believe a certain beloved video starts with "I love grades, grades are great" etc. And they are! Grades show progression, a sense of achievement, of hard work paying off, something that old gits love to whinge about the youth not appreciating these days.

Wanting to climb really hard is how you get to do hard stuff. Otherwise I'd just sit in my pants playing Elden Ring all day. Instead I do it in my Moon branded jeans and top, which is much better and cooler obvs.