[Nibile]

Good video that one of Webb.
I particularly like the soundtrack, the fact that he no longer wears an anklet and that he uses the word "anticlimatic".

[Bradders]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CH3E9SynMqo/?igshid=1mwa655r4emc

8a+ / 8b / 8b+ (who knows?) onsight by Hazel Findlay, pretty impressive whichever one of those grades it is!

[Wood FT]

She has made a few comments about the soft grading there - sounds great.

[Stu Littlefair]

Barrows warmed up on this in the mist whilst we were there, but I fell off. 8a+ is probably fair.

Either, way is this the hardest onsight by a Brit? Am I right in remembering that Ros flashed Face du Rat?

[ali k]

Am I right in remembering that Ros flashed Face du Rat?

She did.

[remus]

Barrows warmed up on this in the mist whilst we were there, but I fell off. 8a+ is probably fair.

Either, way is this the hardest onsight by a Brit? Am I right in remembering that Ros flashed Face du Rat?

Molly TS has onsighted an 8a+, can't remember what it was but it's on her 8a.nu logbook.

[abarro81]

Molly onsighted 8b this past summer (something near Innsbruck looking at her 8a account)

Interesting that Hazel gave Donkey Kong Ext 8a+ but labelled Pig in the Roof 8b in her pic. I thought Pig was easier than DK... Both seemed to make sense at bottom end 8b in the context of others in Leonidio (I.e. could easily be 8a+)

[Duma]

Interesting that Hazel gave Donkey Kong Ext 8a+ but labelled Pig in the Roof 8b in her pic. I thought Pig was easier than DK...

Weird that you and Hazel might have different opinions on gtades...

[remus]

It sounds like Akira has had a couple of repeats: https://www.instagram.com/p/CH52khijvz7/

It seems the controversy continues as it sounds like some holds have broken in the initial boulder problem taking it from 8B to 7C (says Fred).

[Teaboy]

Slash grade incoming

[jwi]

haha, my bet is 8c+/9a.

manically refreshing https://www.facebook.com/argrimpol waiting to get the gossip

[SA Chris]

It seems the controversy continues as it sounds like some holds have broken in the initial boulder problem taking it from 8B to 7C (says Fred).

How conwenient.

[ferret]

It seems the controversy continues as it sounds like some holds have broken in the initial boulder problem taking it from 8B to 7C (says Fred).

How conwenient.

Can confirm via a friend that worked Akira pretty hard that the initial section used to be 8B. His breakdown was 8B to a crap rest on a 3 finger pocket into a second 8B to the lip. He never tried the final rope section (8a?) as he thought it was pointless.
Bit Sad for Fred that it finally gets repeated but not with it's initial difficulty, even at 9a it would still have been a monumental achievement at the time of the FA. Loved Rouhling ever since the cartoon he sent to OTE as his submission to a grade debate article, legendary trolling before trolling existed.

[Nibile]

Which cartoon?

[duncan]

Which cartoon?

Men grading badly (On The Edge 53)

[gme]

It seems the controversy continues as it sounds like some holds have broken in the initial boulder problem taking it from 8B to 7C (says Fred).

How conwenient.

Can confirm via a friend that worked Akira pretty hard that the initial section used to be 8B. His breakdown was 8B to a crap rest on a 3 finger pocket into a second 8B to the lip. He never tried the final rope section (8a?) as he thought it was pointless.
Bit Sad for Fred that it finally gets repeated but not with it's initial difficulty, even at 9a it would still have been a monumental achievement at the time of the FA. Loved Rouhling ever since the cartoon he sent to OTE as his submission to a grade debate article, legendary trolling before trolling existed.

Who’s the friend? Pretty important info as without other confirmation that it’s massively changed no one is going to believe Fred.

As far as I can see without proof it’s changed it will be down as what ever grade it is now.

[jwi]

hugely disappointed that a slash grade is not forthcoming (I blame Lucien Martinez). 9a apparently

https://www.instagram.com/p/CH7ehJVjZ9Y/

[ferret]

It seems the controversy continues as it sounds like some holds have broken in the initial boulder problem taking it from 8B to 7C (says Fred).

How conwenient.

Can confirm via a friend that worked Akira pretty hard that the initial section used to be 8B. His breakdown was 8B to a crap rest on a 3 finger pocket into a second 8B to the lip. He never tried the final rope section (8a?) as he thought it was pointless.
Bit Sad for Fred that it finally gets repeated but not with it's initial difficulty, even at 9a it would still have been a monumental achievement at the time of the FA. Loved Rouhling ever since the cartoon he sent to OTE as his submission to a grade debate article, legendary trolling before trolling existed.

Who’s the friend? Pretty important info as without other confirmation that it’s massively changed no one is going to believe Fred.

As far as I can see without proof it’s changed it will be down as what ever grade it is now.

Phil Gondoux, about 15 years ago he tried it a lot. He had good form for hard roof stuff, 2nd ascent of Fatman sit (8b+ before that nutter took a 🔨 to it) as well as lots of other stuff around that grade FA of Queen of Hearts, Tortuga, etc.
From what I recall he had done the 2 halves and linked into the 2nd 8B and thought it 8Cish to the lip (no route grade offered).
Might be slightly out on the details as it was a while ago, but probably not by much.
Fred did a lot of the FAs and repeats of the early 8's in the area (Targasonne) and was regarded as a beast by all the locals and not a man to be doubted on his claims.

[ferret]

Gav, for what little it's worth, Phil had a training replica on his woody that I saw him do big links on. The thing was nails, despite being a pretty solid 8A climber at the time I couldn't do more than a few moves at a time and some of them not at all. Nothing 7C about it. It was my anti-style though, big moves on incuts and deep 2 fingers, lots of cuts and campusing.

[gme]

Why is this not mentioned when the route has been discussed in the past? Or has it ? 

I personally think that it won’t have changed that much and the grade of 9a will be right. That was cutting edge when it was done so it’s not in anyway saying Fred  was shit.

If stuff has fallen off since Fred did it it would usually mean it got harder, although it’s possible it got easier. But two 8Bs linked together (8C ) is  along way from what den is saying so for it to change that much would need some pretty large holds to be added. This would be obvious on the limited footage that’s available of Fred on it.

My bet is that it hasn’t changed a lot, the route was 9 a at the time but in a very odd style that wasn’t climbed much in that period so felt desperate when people did.
Steep roof climbing was not a thing until well into the late 90s/ 2000s.

[gme]

Gav, for what little it's worth, Phil had a training replica on his woody that I saw him do big links on. The thing was nails, despite being a pretty solid 8A climber at the time I couldn't do more than a few moves at a time and some of them not at all. Nothing 7C about it. It was my anti-style though, big moves on incuts and deep 2 fingers, lots of cuts and campusing.

I don’t doubt it.

I have never been a doubter of Fred’s despite hearing all the shit talk about him I here and in France at the time. I just never believed the grade.

[petejh]

Phil Gondoux, about 15 years ago he tried it a lot. He had good form for hard roof stuff, 2nd ascent of Fatman sit (8b+ before that nutter took a 🔨 to it) as well as lots of other stuff around that grade FA of Queen of Hearts, Tortuga, etc.
From what I recall he had done the 2 halves and linked into the 2nd 8B and thought it 8Cish to the lip (no route grade offered).
Might be slightly out on the details as it was a while ago, but probably not by much.
Fred did a lot of the FAs and repeats of the early 8's in the area (Targasonne) and was regarded as a beast by all the locals and not a man to be doubted on his claims.

This is why UKB is great.
25 years of the climbing world doubting a man about the difficulty of what would have been the world's hardest route. Then someone comes along and casually mentions his mate, who's apparently fully capable of appraising Akira's difficulty, tried the route and was making good progress confirming it as in the 8b-into-8b-into 8a ballpark and thus more or less what the FA said.

[gme]

I just did a quick google of Phil gondoux ( as I had not heard of him) and he also seems to have a lot of doubters and controversy surrounding him.
Words such as “infamous” and “doubtful ascent” immediately  appear in the google searches.

[petejh]

 

[jwi]

neverending saga...

there are, by the way, plenty of absolute beast who have not climbed 9b despite trying very hard.