[tomtom]

This debate is about as important as arguing about different ways to peel an orange*.

If you disagree with using knee pads, then don't use them! You can do the route/problem in the hardest or easiest way you see fit! They (knee pads) do not damage the rock.. so who cares!

Climbing is about the personal achievement - do it however you gain most pleasure and satisfaction.

* Personally I like to peel oranges using my thumb nail, and take a small amount of pleasure if I can get the skin off in one (with no leakage). Anyone else - do you DARE to use a knife!!! or one of those plastic peeler thingies?

[masonwoods101]

I've always actively searched out knee bars and then loudly announced them to my mates... It's become a game looking for them. I've found that in a lot of cases they don't help at all

[Kingy]

secondly the mecca knee bars don't really drastically change the way 90% the route is climbed

That is true about all of the climbing apart from the groove. However, the rest that can now be had once the groove is gained has had a significant effect on the route as an overall proposition. On my redpoint, when I climbed the groove from the ground with no kneebars it was at my physical limit with lactic acid flooding my system, at the absolute limit of my power endurance capability. Now I am trying the extension, I have done the link from the  pocket by the 3rd bolt to the top of Mecca with the 2 no hands shake outs up the groove and this link is way easier than it was before.

I have embraced the kneebar with the rubber knee pad as it is a totally legit use of a natural feature. I personally use the little edge 2 inches above the old crumbled bolt hole instead of this bolthole for my left toe for the first kneebar as this little edge is a natural foothold but that is personal choice. I had looked at the kneebars before rubber pads came in but it didn't seem to work for me with just prana climbing trousers. no wonder most of the pioneers didn't bother with the knee without stealth, without any experience or expertise with kneebars, it didn't seem like the best way. now with the stealth pad it is a different world.

Nobody is to blame for the overlooking of the kneebar, it is just an evolution of the way the route is climbed and now it would raise eyebrows to see anybody do it without!

[petejh]

... Benchmark boulder problems are strong characters in our life, representing ambitions and dreams, as well as signposts by which we navigate our own development and the history of the game. Kneebars are agents of change, and change makes people feel unhappy and uncomfortable. For me one of my lifelong ambitions (directors cut) suddenly became less appealing when the kneebars were found. This was a sad day for me.

But one has to disentangle an emotional response from a full world view, which can only arise from an accomodation between our gut instincts and a logical analysis of the situation. Such an analysis has to be balanced and weigh up whether an opposition to kneepads is irrational, sustainable or indeed desirable.

It is clearly irrational; why are kneepads different to sticky boots, or chalk?

It is clearly unsustainable; to oppose kneepads is to show a blindness to the history of climbing. Technological and technique developments have always been opposed, then grudgingly accepted, then embraced.

It is most likely undesirable; to adopt an opposition to kneepads is to end up in a situation where problems have arbritrary and unsatisfying rules. We had the same problems when people complained about heel hooks, or better sequences in general. The response to this in the 90s was to assert that most problems were eliminates, that heel-hooking was 'out'. Most of us had direct experience of how well this 'worked'.

So I don't accuse anyone of triviality; I only suggest they are letting their emotions hold sway and suggesting a point of view that sober consideration would likely reveal as futile at best, and wrong-headed at worst.

Good post.

I’ve been trying to debate about a very specific area (the cave) and a specific piece of equipment (kneepads). Not routes, not other bouldering areas and not ‘normal’ kneebars which you can use padless without having to spend £100 extra for two specialist bits of rubber mat so you can hang off them.

Kneepads do change the game, like Stu says. And they change it most of all in atypical places like the cave. Where I find myself disagreeing with Stu most of all is to what extent climbers are powerless in the face of particular changes. There aren’t any strict rules enforced on climbing – we get to make up the rules of our games to make its various genre's the most enjoyable or appealing to us. This has been proved time and time again in climbing, in examples such as styles of ascent, use or not of various bits of equipment such as bolts and pegs, even choosing set dates of year for winter-conditions ascents; the point being they’re all arbitrary decisions within an overall loose consensus of opinion. This is why I disagree with Stu when he says we're basically powerless to avoid change and are bound-over to accept all changes that come along or get left behind with the dinosaurs. The heel-spurs thing is very similar to using knee pads in the cave (I'm only talking about the cave) in that you’re adding a small piece of extra equipment for an easier way of crossing the same terrain. Climbers could still use spurs if they wanted (and some still do, I have a pair upstairs unused) but mixed-climbers as a group (with encouragement from the most well-known of them) decided that spurs reduced the challenge to the point that it didn’t ‘improve’ the game. Improve obviously being subjective but a consensus was reached and I think it had a lot to do with the twin attractions of seeking out the most difficulty and hardest grades. Or physical satisfaction and ego.

Is it really very controversial for me to say that ‘bouldering’, when played in its best guise, generally means fighting like mad to get up the hardest moves you can do, or working seemingly impossible moves until they become just about possible? I’m not ‘emotionally’ bothered by this – at least I don’t think so, it’s more of a logical/philosophical sticking point to me. The point being that the game we’ve set ourselves and which has been set for us in the cave is bouldering, with all that that entails, not bat-hang training and not route-climbing. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go and do whatever you want to do. It's always been that anyone can do things differently if they want to. You can go and use a point of aid on a route and no-one really cares.

The most likely outcome of the emergence of knee-pads, in places like the cave at least, is that some problems will have two grades and guidebook writers will in effect be artificially sustaining the cachet of challenges like Director’s Cut by giving them a lower grade with pads and a higher grade without. I think this is almost certain. And it’ll be interesting to see how it affects people’s attitudes to those problems and whether people will be more psyched for the bareback grade or the kneepad grade. Only time will tell if hanging upside down from kneepads ends up being deemed by the majority as cool, or not cool at all. At the moment I (a part-time boulder) don't think it's a particularly cool way to climb those hard cave probs. Please don't read that as a personal attack on Alex, it aint.

If anybody thinks that sounds ridiculously arbitrary and artificial then hello! welcome to planet earth. What is all of climbing if not 100% arbitrary? Does sport climbing - religiously sticking to a defined vertical corridor of rock and calling it a name and grading it, when you could just stray a few metres left or right onto a complete rest in some cases - not ring alarm bells as being one of the most arbitrary things human beings have ever thought of? How about hitting a ball back and forth across a net which has to be 3 feet high at its centre, with a racket whose ‘hitting surface shall not exceed 39.4 cm in overall length, and 29.2 cm in overall width’. Ridiculously arbitrary? Except I don’t hear many people saying ‘yeah but why not let Andy Murray use a special bigger tennis racket if it’s what he likes to do, so what if it makes it easier for him?’

Edit:  I think kneepads are cool on routes and will probably use one if I get around to trying Mecca one day. Go figure. Playing different games.


Btw Alex, please could you call off your guard poodle, (three nine) he’s been nibbling my ankles presumably because he doesn’t like seeing anyone holding views different to those of his master. Thanks.

[Fiend]

but mixed-climbers as a group (with encouragement from the most well-known of them) decided that spurs reduced the challenge to the point that it didn’t ‘improve’ the game.

That all seems a bit strange and a limited use of "improve". Compare it to bouldering mats which, when used en masse, make a HUGE difference to previously dangerous micro-routes and solos. This could be regarded as a non-improvement as it reduces the danger and committment required, BUT has actually allowed and encouraged improvements in the style of ascent. Couldn't the same thing have happened with mixed climbing, i.e. the option to rest on spurs allowing more onsight ascents or ascents on trad gear etc etc??

Same can apply to kneepads too....yes they make it easier but if they allow more flashed ascents or allow someone to climb what would otherwise be a Font 8c+ at Font 8b+....on the subject of which....

Is it really very controversial for me to say that ‘bouldering’, when played in its best guise, generally means fighting like mad to get up the hardest moves you can do, or working seemingly impossible moves until they become just about possible? I’m not ‘emotionally’ bothered by this – at least I don’t think so, it’s more of a logical/philosophical sticking point to me. The point being that the game we’ve set ourselves and which has been set for us in the cave is bouldering, with all that that entails, not bat-hang training and not route-climbing.

How does that tally with, say, Dave Mac's Natural Method which both has a crucial kneebar AND is indubitably both "fighting like mad to get up the hardest moves you can do" and "working seemingly impossible moves until they become just about possible"??

[Andy F]

So... a weak sport climber goes to the cave, uses cunning, technique and technology to solve some long stamina type problems and the world is changed forever. Alex 

[account_inactive]

Weak people are like flys to this shit 

[tomtom]

Pete - I can see where you're coming from but really, does it matter how anyone gets up as long as they don't damage or change the rock? After all its only yourself you're pleasing...

If a problem is a grade easier with a knee bar - then thats the easiest method and thus the grade drops...
So what...? if you want to do it the harder way - well fill yer boots and enjoy the satisfaction of doing it the old way without any of that new fangled knee nonsense etc..!

IIRC Wasn't Brad Pit initially a 8A, then (sorry my climbing history is log) didnt a french chap come along and lob on ze heel - et voilla its suddenly easier? Now thats how everyone does it.. and a few moot 7C now instead of 7C+...

For me, the biggest game changer in bouldering in the last 30 years has been the video. Instead of trying loads of different ways - or tapping up some luurcal for secret beta you can now get on YouTube and see two, three or more different ways of doing things!  But you know what - if you dont like that, you just dont watch the video! If you don't like using knee bars/pads then don't use em!

There is also a fundamental difference between a knee pad and a rock shoe. Apart from one going on a knee and the other on a foot that is.. A rock shoe shapes, supports and thus strengthens the foot artifically to allow you to step on tiny edges. The knee pad may offer more grip - but I suspect its main asset is preventing pain and bruising (Mina's reasons spring to mind) - are there any routes around where you need the sticky smearing capability of a knee pad? Knee pads will not offer anything like the level of 'game changing' support/shaping etc.. to the knee that rock boots do to the foot...

[nai]

Think BP was 8B then MlM stuck a toe on to make it 8A (there was a no heels rule in the Peak at the time). Then heel use became deregulated and it dropped to 7C+, now reckoned to be 7C due to the proliferation of videoed ascents

[abarro81]

The flaw with your point about wanting to choose about whether pads are accepted or not is that this has basically been decided over the last decade by the rest of the world. The change has already happened in both the US and France at the least judging by photos/videos/what I've seen in Loup, I've seen a lot of rubber pads in Spain too. If the UK 'community' decided that pads were 'cheating' then foreigners would just come and rinse the problems and downgrade them using all the tricks.
(Also, judging by this thread the majority is pro pads.)


Personally if I were writing a guide I wouldn't use 2 grades, just use the lower grade and note that the FA was done with a different method at a higher grade (either in the description or a history section) and that the problem is morpho with the new sequence and grade for those knees which are leg length dependent. Otherwise do you give a grade for with pads, a grade for knees with no pads and a grade for no knees?? Maybe a different grade depending on shorts vs jeans vs moon trousers vs prana trousers, not to mention distinguishing that the knees are best at a particular leg length. The cave aint my local though so you lot can decide what you want to do about grading. A strong local(ish) saw me do DC and seemed clear that he still wanted to do DC the original way but considered that he could now only take soft 8a+ for it irrespective of the method he used.

Like I said before, I have no interest in using pads on routes but not on boulder problems. That sounds proper  to me. What about highballs? Traverses given route grades like trav of the gods? Or maybe I'm only allowed 1 type of 'pad' - either foam or rubber? 

It seems you mainly object to the resting, so maybe pads are ok for moves (e.g. trigger, dandelion mind, kings of solerno, derailled etc) but not for rests? 

TT - Pit was originally dynoed wasnt it? then toe then heel, with a downgrade for each improvement in method.

are there any routes around where you need the sticky smearing capability of a knee pad?

I've done 1 route where there were 2 ways I could do the crux - bad knee or jump. The knee only worked with a rubber pad.

[abarro81]

Think moon used the toe and MlM the heel?

[nai]

Think MlM did the second ascent, second try with the toe, then Moon repeated it this way, it was on a film "yeah Brad Pit's 'ard but not that 'ard, I'd certainly like to think I can climb harder".

[nai]

All this talk of downgrading, has anybody else actually been and tried to get into this rest?  By the look of the video, Alex's left foot is fairly extended so it would appear it's quite a span, is it even going to be usable by the majority?

[Stubbs]

PeteJH are people allowed to rest on jugs in the cave when on the longer links (i.e. the one at the start of Rock Atrocity or before the Beaver problems), or is having the stamina to recover uncool too? 

[AJM]

Is it really very controversial for me to say that ‘bouldering’, when played in its best guise, generally means fighting like mad to get up the hardest moves you can do, or working seemingly impossible moves until they become just about possible? I’m not ‘emotionally’ bothered by this – at least I don’t think so, it’s more of a logical/philosophical sticking point to me. The point being that the game we’ve set ourselves and which has been set for us in the cave is bouldering, with all that that entails, not bat-hang training and not route-climbing. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go and do whatever you want to do. It's always been that anyone can do things differently if they want to. You can go and use a point of aid on a route and no-one really cares.

The most likely outcome of the emergence of knee-pads, in places like the cave at least, is that some problems will have two grades and guidebook writers will in effect be artificially sustaining the cachet of challenges like Director’s Cut by giving them a lower grade with pads and a higher grade without. I think this is almost certain. And it’ll be interesting to see how it affects people’s attitudes to those problems and whether people will be more psyched for the bareback grade or the kneepad grade. Only time will tell if hanging upside down from kneepads ends up being deemed by the majority as cool, or not cool at all. At the moment I (a part-time boulder) don't think it's a particularly cool way to climb those hard cave probs. Please don't read that as a personal attack on Alex, it aint.

Based on these two paragraphs, I'm not entirely sure on the reasons behind your dislike if that kneebar/kneepad...

If the kneebar Alex used turns out to be doable without a pad, but just really painful so you can have fewer goes before you get monster bruising, would you be happy for the problem to be climbed that way? I can't judge from your post whether you just don't like the idea that a power-endurance venue/problem has had its power-endurance purity "ruined" (which it still would be with a bareback knee), or whether doing the same sequence sans pad would be "right" because it doesnt use an additional piece of equipment that can be deemed as somehow "not playing the game"...?

I'd always personally have seen those cave problems as being power-stamina (theyre pretty long, as opposed to say a 5 move boulder problem) and therefore assumed that anything which goes on routes goes on that style of problem, but then I'm too weak for them anyway so what do I know.

I think Alex has a point though about the rules on pads having already been decided globally - I think it would end up being a very local quirk to declare the cave a pad-free zone (or at least to grade it as such).

[Bonjoy]

Personally if I were writing a guide I wouldn't use 2 grades, just use the lower grade and note that the FA was done with a different method at a higher grade (either in the description or a history section) and that the problem is morpho with the new sequence and grade for those knees which are leg length dependent.

I agree with the rest of your post(s), but not this bit.
If (and it is an if because I genuinely don't know)only the tallest (say 10%) of climber can get the kneebars in enough to make them worth the effort, then grading according to how hard it is for that subset makes no sense. I have nothing against tall bastards, it's just that if problems are not graded for the average of stature then a freak 10 foot man will turn up one day and we will have to downgraded half of everything in the country, if you see what I mean.

[Jack.G]

This thread was never meant to explore whether pads would downgrade problems but discussion keeps getting dragged back to numbers, a totally seperate topic.

This is about "style", as some posters are getting.

Is using a pad a lesser style?

Do they present the opportunity to bring a problem down to the individuals level?

Are they acceptable for pushing the limits at the "cutting edge"?

[rosmat]

All this anti progress rubbish is why we are getting left behind in the UK.

It reminds me of Fred Rouhling's cartoon submission to OTE in response to Ben Moons comments about Hubble still bring hardest in world.

Knee bars are cool.

BTW if anyone has a copy of that cartoon, please stick it up. Would love to see it again. Genius!

[petejh]

PeteJH are people allowed to rest on jugs in the cave when on the longer links (i.e. the one at the start of Rock Atrocity or before the Beaver problems), or is having the stamina to recover uncool too? 

You can rest on jugs in the cave? 


A.B. your mate's only contribution was to chip in with name calling from the sidelines during an otherwise well-natured exchange of views. Great guy.

[tomtom]

This thread was never meant to explore whether pads would downgrade problems but discussion keeps getting dragged back to numbers, a totally seperate topic.

This is about "style", as some posters are getting.

Is using a pad a lesser style?

Do they present the opportunity to bring a problem down to the individuals level?

Are they acceptable for pushing the limits at the "cutting edge"?

Do you like polo necks or v necks? Flairs or drainpipe jeans?
Your question about style is as daft as mine!

In the eye of the beholder and all that...

[tomtom]

Think moon used the toe and MlM the heel?

Apologies guys, my BP history is whack...

[petejh]

AJM - it would proba ly cancel the benefit out wouldn't it? If it was so painful to use without I mean. So probably wouldn't end up being much easier.

[abarro81]

Good point Bonjoy. I take it back. Do it like dynos or whatever and give it the average grade with a note that it's easier for the tall/short as they can use a knee which others can't
(I have no idea if the resting knees on LF are morpho or not - there are a few nubbins for the feet and a lot of ramp so it may not be heightist, someone shorter would have to try.)

Pete - you're very focused on the resting knees. I use 2 others on DC - at the bottom of LF (this is Caff's invention I think?) and the knee on TC. Even without the rest I found these (with pads) bring the problem down to (at a guess) solid 8a+ instead of hard 8b, though it would still be a 'pure' power endurance problem. In a similar question to AJMs (which you didn't answer, presuming I could get that rest without pads - I have no idea if I could or not) - would this be as objectionable to you?

[AJM]

AJM - it would proba ly cancel the benefit out wouldn't it? If it was so painful to use without I mean. So probably wouldn't end up being much easier.

Even if you could only get hands off for a shorter period of time (Alex seems to have said already that it's not the easiest position to hold) then that can't exactly harm? Obviously it's got to be more beneficial than the energy it takes to get into it, that goes without saying.

I don't know that anyone's tried, but it was more a question of your motivation than the practicalities - if somehow I acquired some technique, strength and stamina and rocked up in the cave tomorrow and crushed the problem using that rest without a pad, would you  feel different about it not being what bouldering is about - is it the act of getting a hands free rest in the middle of a power endurance problem that bothers you, or just the fact he was wearing a pad when he did it?

[Bonjoy]

Jack.G - All of your questions have been answered (at length) already. There really isn't much more to say on what is a pretty simple question. The debate has reached the point of going round in circles and the same things just being said in slightly different ways.

Is using a pad a lesser style?

It's subjective. Anti-pads say yes because they think it's less cool. Pro-pads say no because climbing is about the easiest sequence and eliminates are stylistically inferior.

Do they present the opportunity to bring a problem down to the individuals level?

No, the problem is as it always was. Climbers simply failed to spot the easiest sequence. Climbers got better, the problem remains the same lump of rock it ever was. Pads DO present an opportunity for climbers to get up more challenging lines. Most seem to agree this is a positive thing.

Are they acceptable for pushing the limits at the "cutting edge"?

More than acceptable, they are essential on some things. Like Dan says, probs will be put up (if they don't already exist) which will be physically impossible without a pad.
No doubt a shrinking minority will persist in the idea they are not acceptable. Time and peer pressure will see to you lot in the end though I'm sure.