[T_B]

Caff's blog write-up

Jeez, why are 'professional' climbers such as Macleod and Pearson so utterly crap at grading? You'd think with the amount of climbing they do, they'd know what grade stuff is. Macleod's blog posts about the Long Hope top pitch hype up the 8B+ top rope grade and how he thought it might be 8C but there was one tiny foothold etc etc. And big runouts too. He now looks like a bit of a dick. The difference between 8a+ and 8b+ is frickin massive. Respect to Caff, Dan and Adam getting up there and getting on it.

[Fiend]

£££ 

[Johnny Brown]

Macleod's blog posts about the Long Hope top pitch hype up the 8B+ top rope grade and how he thought it might be 8C but there was one tiny foothold etc etc. And big runouts too. He now looks like a bit of a dick.

Steady on Tom, I've never heard Caff say a route is hard, he just states that everything thing is 'piss' as he found 'a good crimp'. And I hear Caff is in the form of his life at the mo...

[Doylo]

[T_B]

Macleod's blog posts about the Long Hope top pitch hype up the 8B+ top rope grade and how he thought it might be 8C but there was one tiny foothold etc etc. And big runouts too. He now looks like a bit of a dick.

Steady on Tom, I've never heard Caff say a route is hard, he just states that everything thing is 'piss' as he found 'a good crimp'. And I hear Caff is in the form of his life at the mo...

OK, but in the context of Caff's blog post, where he describes struggling on Crisis Zone (a lowly E7), it sounds as though the long hope top pitch is massively overgraded.

[Johnny Brown]

Maybe. Apples and oranges to some extent though?

[slackline]

Does it matter?  Don't route grades settle down eventually anyway as they get more ascents and a consensus can be formed?

(Shit I'd best shut up otherwise this will sound like a thread on UKC)

[r-man]

Jeez, why are 'professional' climbers such as Macleod and Pearson so utterly crap at grading?

If no one else has climbed the bit of rock you are on, how do you know whether you are finding it hard because 1) you've missed something 2) it doesn't suit you 3) it's really really hard?

Grading is difficult. Grading first ascents is harder. Grading first ascents of cutting edge trad routes on the top of scary sea stacks in awful weather is just maybe a little harder still.

Calling someone a dick after they've climbed something they put all their effort into is a strange reaction.

[T_B]

I think you're overstating the difficulty of grading a long pitch which you've spent a long time working on a rope. I'm not saying it doesn't happen (missing an obvious sequence, or hold) but this is a trad crack on a leaning wall, not some weird limestone bouldery thing.

[r-man]

So you think grading trad routes is fairly straightforward, and pro climbers must be giving their first ascents the wrong grade on purpose?

[shark]

Jeez, why are 'professional' climbers such as Macleod and Pearson so utterly crap at grading?

Calling someone a dick after they've climbed something they put all their effort into is a strange reaction.

Tom did not call them dicks.

There is a big gap between the grades.

Certainly Pearson has over-graded big routes in the past. Macleod not much?. In his write-up Macleod says he was goosed by the time he got to the final pitch and only just managed to pull it out of the bag by the skin of his teeth which will have had an influence in the same way that Caff just focussing on the top pitch will have influenced his assessment.       

[r-man]

Tom did not call them dicks.

He now looks like a bit of a dick.

Sorry, I don't want to focus on that, and I'm sure Tom didn't mean anything particularly offensive by it, but it just struck me as a little bit harsh. We're all capable of saying things without using insults.

Anyway. 

[T_B]

OK, I could have been 'gentler' in what I wrote, but I'm reacting to having read DM's blog in the past where he has literally written paragraphs dissecting grades of other people's routes e.g. http://davemacleod.blogspot.co.uk/2006/07/divided-years.html.

He's also written pages and pages about understanding his own strengths and weaknesses.

2 sport grades or 2/3 trad grades out is a lot (but maybe as Adam says, Caff's analysis is influenced by him being on form).

[turnipturned]

"he know looks a bit of a dick"- How was that comment remotely constuctive?

Props to Dave Macleod for scoping and sending such an incredible looking route in the first palce (a long with everything else he has done recently- definately pushing our sport on to new levels)

And effort to Caff and crew going up there and repeating the top pitch so quickly it in somewhat crap conditions.

British climbing scene is kicking off recently- lets be positive!

[abarro81]

Actually, I don't think 2 sport grades is necessarily a huge gap in opinion. Sure, easy 8a+ vs hard 8b+ is huge, but, say, hard 8a+ and easy 8b+ aren't actually all the far apart. Close enough that subtleties of whether it 'fits' you or not could just about explain the difference. Let alone when you include the fact that it sounds like Caff is shit at grading, and factors like whether you're a bit more gripped or not by the exposure etc.

[Three Nine]

Style is important, abarro81 is sposed to have climbed 8c+ and guarantee you he couldn't link longhope top pich on a toprope! 

[T_B]

DM has built a pro climbing career on redpointing hard routes, then analaysing in depth their relative difficulty and his climbing performance in relation to them.

A more understated climber (albeit one on the top of his game, with loads of trad experience, and two 9As under his belt!) rocks up and literally paths DM's much hyped 'E10/11' calling it E8. If you don't find that even mildly ironic, then fine!

[Fultonius]

OK, I could have been 'gentler' in what I wrote, but I'm reacting to having read DM's blog in the past where he has literally written paragraphs dissecting grades of other people's routes e.g. http://davemacleod.blogspot.co.uk/2006/07/divided-years.html.

He's also written pages and pages about understanding his own strengths and weaknesses.

2 sport grades or 2/3 trad grades out is a lot (but maybe as Adam says, Caff's analysis is influenced by him being on form).

So Dave gave it 8b+, which is very possibly over graded by, say, half a sport grade.

Caff gave it 8a+ and is known to say things are "piss" when he doesn't find them too hard. He might be...ooh, say....half a grade under.

Hmmm..... 8b anyone 

I guess this is where the "theoretical onsight" for a headpointed route gets ludicrous.  I mean, could you imagine rocking up to the base of a 400m route, that had a pitch of 8a+ at the top and then onsighting it all on trad gear.

That would be a mighty fine effort! 

[Jaspersharpe]

Both points are valid. There might not be a huge difference between bottom end 8b+ and "Caff 8a+" but there is also a heavy sense of irony here, as Tom says.

Oh and what an effort in those conditions. 

[slackline]

A more understated climber (albeit one on the top of his game, with loads of trad experience, and two 9As under his belt!) rocks up and literally paths DM's much hyped 'E10/11' calling it E8. If you don't find that even mildly ironic, then fine!

Isn't that exactly what Mc Dave did on the Walk of Life though (climbing it whilst 'injured' because it was a slab)?

Swings and roundabouts innit? 

[Jaspersharpe]

That's the point slackers.

[Nibile]

I think that grading a climb is extremely difficult, because our experience is completely subjective. Trad climbing multiplies this difficulty, adding fear, danger, conditions and so on. So, errors or misjudgements are pretty normal even for top climbers, especially when operating at the - perceived - limits.
We don't use cronographs or measurements of any sort. I don't think that any of the top sprinters could be precise if asked "how fast did you go today?"
Anyway that's an amazing effort, pulled out with a shocking aura of nonchalance despite the awful conditions.
Memories of DM commenting on James' route spring up. What goes around...

[jwi]

I've found grades on finger cracks to be mostly nonsense any way (but my fingers have about twice the thickness than normal men's fingers). Dave MacLeod clearly needed to try very hard on the video, I have no doubt he found it harder than 8a+ for him.

[Nigel]

Yeah pinch of salt I reckon, like JB says Caff doesn't find anything hard according to him, and his grading system is bonkers. I'm pretty sure he's listed the breakdown of some hard sport routes to me before and its along the lines of "chummy long F7a, quick 6b pull, mellow F7b section, then steady 5c moves on bomber crimps" = F8c.

The exposure / walk in / weather conditions / daylight is immaterial and doesn't impress me at all since these things clearly don't affect Caff.

[Paul B]

Actually, I don't think 2 sport grades is necessarily a huge gap in opinion.

What utter nonsense, not to mention you're forgetting the other part of the grade. I'll reconsider if you can give me an example (that isn't in Euroland) of something for instance that would feel similar to Dev. Arms?