[Johnny Brown]

Grades are supposed to be assigned for a notional climber of average stature.

And don't forget climbing onsight? Are they though? We don't have a written consititution afaik.

All a grade can ever be is an assessment of how hard you found the problem.

Over time, from the spread of these (hopefully) we can pull an average. Any attempt to guess how hard a notional average punter would find it risks even greater obfuscation, imho.

[Bonjoy]

There has to be a baseline/standard even if it’s not reflective of the climber making the assessment. Otherwise the grade is not just meaningless in practice but in theory also. Grading always involves trying to second guess how something feels for someone else and therefore requires a mental model of a ‘someone’. To misquote Churchill – grading for the notional average climber is the worst form of grading except all those other forms that have been tried.
The onsight thing is irrelevant to bouldering grades IMO.
Grade consensus is a luxury that might be achieved once a problem has had a good number of ascents. Assuming that is the well hasn’t been hopelessly poisoned by tall climbers stating their opinion based on how a climb felt for them without taking their height advantage into account. Climbs that are hard for the short/average tend to get a lot more ascents by giants, hence a lot more grade votes by giants. If giants don’t grade for the notional average when grade voting then the consensus will be hopelessly skewed, and inaccurate for the bulk of climbers.

[tomtom]

Amen.

[Rob F]

If you go to Tesco's and want to buy some Orange juice that is unfortunately positioned on the top shelf. Is the price any different if you are a tall person or small person???

[webbo]

Yes because shorties have to buy the more expensive stuff placed lower down. If they were to ask someone to get it down for them that would be the equivalent to a French start or Yorkshire spot.

[Bradders]

If you go to Tesco's and want to buy some Orange juice that is unfortunately positioned on the top shelf. Is the price any different if you are a tall person or small person???

Different beta needed. Maybe a dyno?

[36chambers]

Grades are supposed to be assigned for a notional climber of average stature.

I think it should also be highlighted that the average stature is across both male and female climbers (which I imagine historically wasn't necessarily the case). This means that Will is even more of an morphological anomaly than he might have realised.

[Will Hunt]

I keep meaning to write a proper response to this but it will likely be very long, boring, and uncool.
In it I was going to make the point that the supposed "average" that grades are given for is really a male average. But the concept of the grade being for the average climber is flawed anyway.

[Rob F]

Will- you doing male and female versions of your guidebook???

[Bonjoy]

Any and all attempts to quantify difficulty are flawed, obviously. It's a question of what is the least flawed option. Which option provides the most utility, most consistently, and to the most climbers.
I'd like to hear a cogent argument for any alternative system doing this better that grading for the notional average (GFA).
The inherent gender-bias is a hangover of when the systems came into wide use. Today the mean height might be lower than the average height of an average male climber, as there are a greater number of female and youth climbers. It might be expected that this mean height will continue to change, and is variable between countries. However regrading the world would be impractical to say the least and would doubtless create more problems than it solves, so the least worst option is sticking to the previously used notional model. So long as there is a notional average, which remains unchanging, it is fairly easy for an individual to determine how far they differ from it and adjust their expectation of what a grade might mean accordingly.
Again obviously, in many/most cases grades are such a blunt instrument (for many long and boring reasons) that all of this is a meaningless abstraction. The underlying point though is that there should be a standard to anchor the system to in order to minimise this inevitable inaccuracy and people smart enough to know they are a good way either side of the average height should qualify their opinions, or face online polls and long tedious grade debates.

[SA Chris]

Why is height the defining variable? Why not weight, VO2 Max, ratio of index finger to ring finger, shoe size, age?

[Will Hunt]

I'm not sure the principle is necessarily flawed, but it does seem like its foundation is wrong.

For instance, if this notional average climber (the platonic climber, the one climber who isn't cheating by being too tall/thin/whatever) was to change, then presumably you'd have to regrade climbs because they had become easier for the average? This is at odds with how I think about grades.

Grades to me are just a way of comparing different climbs against each other - not a way to compare climbs against an absolute notion of difficulty. So 7A is better defined as a collection of climbs that are about the same difficulty - there's no equation/mathematical model that perfectly defines difficulty.

So when I challenge the difficulty of a problem, more often than not it's a problem that hasn't been developed very long ago, or is likely to have changed significantly since it's first ascent (de-scrittling at Brimham/better sequences found etc). I think about how it compares to other climbs of the same difficulty and general style. This is why I can't really offer much opinion about Red Baron Roof. It's the only climb of that grade that I've done and all I know about it is that it's harder than the very small number of similar things at 7C that I've done (Underhand Extension springs to mind - though this is probably the very rock bottom end of 7C anyway).

Trying to grade for a notional average comes at the problem from the wrong direction. What's really important is that climbers of all shapes and sizes have an understanding of what 7A or whatever feels like to them.

So with the problem that bumped this thread - Pi R Squared at Norwood Edge - it gets 7C in the guidebook and I did it on my second go. Sorry if that sounds like willy waving. Let me explain. The reason I feel the need to challenge this is because having "7C second go" anywhere on my climbing C.V. is not something I'm happy with because I know that I'm not that good. It would be wholly disingenuous of me to go around crowing about it like I'd actually done a 7C second go. I appreciate that for many, 7C second go would be a disappointment, but for me it would be very near the top of my list of achievements on rock. So I challenged the grade, but also recognised that it's a morpho problem. If you haven't got the reach then it's going to be much harder. But when I say "the reach", I don't mean that it's a particularly reachy problem - it's fine for an average bloke; anyone shorter will probably struggle. People have a really mad concept of how tall I am. I'll come back to that. Also for Pi R Squared, there have only been three recorded ascents of the problem (I don't mean that only three people have done it, but only 3 people have done it and logged/video'd it). Tom (the FA) gave it 7C but noted that the holds were damp when he did it. Basically, there's no reason to assume that the given grade is some time-honoured benchmark.

On my height. I can objectively demonstrate using highly scientific instrumentation (a tape measure) that I am not some lanky ganglemorph. I might be above average height (5 foot, 10 inches) and have a modest positive ape index, but I'm by no means a freak of nature. I totally get that most of the "lanky Will Hunt" banter is just a laugh and I enjoy it, but I resent that perfectly reasonable (and valuable, I think, because so few people are actually prepared to challenge grades, even when they're wrong) opinions can just be dismissed as a "giant" "poisoning the well". Dave Warburton has exactly the same arm span as me but is a stocky fly-half of a man and has never, to my knowledge, been accused of being lanky or cheating his way up anything. It's not that I'm especially lanky, I'm just scrawny.

On the subject of height, why does nobody ever mention the massive advantage that is conferred on shorter climbers on any terrain that isn't reachy. Their natural power to weight ratio is much better and they have a signifcant edge on anything on a roof where core comes into play - which is virtually everything north of 7C+? But I've never heard anybody try and discredit somebody's big tick because a problem is easier for the short, even though many of the hardest problems are easier if you're a little shorter.

Sorry, all a bit of a rushed post and so not very robust. I may punish you all later with a fuller response, but it'll probably end up as a Cheetham-esque ramble.

[dunnyg]

Not all shorter climbers have a higher power to weight ratio Will

[Fiend]

Scrawny = massive advantage of naturally better power to weight ratio. Hth.

(And on the rare occasions it doesn't, it can be trained. Unlike height).

Grading is tricky for bouldering. I think it's particularly useful to mention when a problem is morpho, as some clearly are on gritstone especially, and prior warning is useful.

[Will Hunt]

Duh.

Think of it this way. If all other things are equal, the shorter climber has a better power to weight ratio.

Imagine if I retained my current feeble musculature, but shrunk by a foot, who would the stronger climber be? 5' 10" Will or 4' 10" Will?

Or imagine if 36chambers retained his ripped physique and grew by a foot. Who would be able to pull down harder? 3' 11" NDogg, or the shorter one?

So if you assume that all things are equal and that each of these climbers has the same propensity for training and the same ability to get stronger fingers etc, the shorter climbers will get a better power to weight ratio for the same amount of training.

[36chambers]

But you are lighter than me, despite being 3 foot taller?

And although I am quite the Adonis, throbbing muscles don't necessarily equate to functional strength or power. 

[spidermonkey09]

Think of it this way. If all other things are equal, the shorter climber has a better power to weight ratio.

Isn't this the same principle that Bonjoy proposed that you (partly) disagreed with? Namely that in order to have a functioning grading system one has to presume that all other things are equal except the point of difference one has chosen? I would say grading for the notionally average height of a climber has got to be more useful than grading for the notionally average P/W ratio of a climber, not least because as Fiend says, you can train P/W.

This thread is simultaneously quite interesting and deeply tedious!

[dunnyg]

I cross between disliking the old other channel style grades are stupid thread, and enjoying winding lanky Will up.   

[teestub]

Grades to me are just a way of comparing different climbs against each other - not a way to compare climbs against an absolute notion of difficulty. So 7A is better defined as a collection of climbs that are about the same difficulty - there's no equation/mathematical model that perfectly defines difficulty.

This is all everyone can do personally, but the output of everyone’s personal opinions gives you the ‘absolute difficulty’ of 7A (in this example).

People probably bring up your grade opinions so regularly because you do so yourself, and you generally like to allude to the idea that no one else is taking this grading lark seriously, and they are all also finding things easy but just padding their logbooks or whatever.

[tomtom]

Personally Will, it grates when you say X or Y problem IS grade whatever... because that’s what you think. Not what it actually is.

Prefacing grade comments with I think it’s... or it felt like... is IMHO a better way of putting things... 

[cheque]

It all comes down to how much confidence you have as yourself as a perfect yardstick of climbing difficulty doesn't it?

Upon performing unexpectedly well or poorly on a climb most people will consider whether they were having a good or bad day, whether it suits or doesn't suit their personal skills and/ or physical attributes or if they've improved or regressed in their climbing ability since they last formed an idea of what grades they can and can't climb, then consult the opinions of others, both in person and online before seriously questioning a grade, even then being aware that their experience is just part of the multilateral concensus necessary to arrive at what will always be an approximate measure.

And others just immediately go full Fiendblog and say "The grade's wrong, anyone who says it's that grade is an idiot". 

[Rob F]

Will - once the weather improves I'm going to take you to a crag that you've never been to before to do 40 problems. You are to say what the grades are without looking at the official guidebook. Your phone will be confiscated for the day:

10 will be onsight / flashes
10 complete after working
10 did not finishes
10 stood at the bottom and said- "yer that's about..."

Less hearsay and more facts!


You are welcome to go on a diet before this benchmarking day...

[GazM]

I don't know the problems in question so can't comment, but what strikes me is the size of the downgrades. 7C to 6C? That's Si O'Connor territory!

[SA Chris]

I'm not sure the principle is necessarily flawed, but it does seem like its foundation is wrong......Sorry, all a bit of a rushed post and so not very robust. I may punish you all later with a fuller response, but it'll probably end up as a Cheetham-esque ramble.

The lanky doth protest too much methinks.

[Bradders]

I don't know the problems in question so can't comment, but what strikes me is the size of the downgrades. 7C to 6C? That's Si O'Connor territory!

To be fair to Will (urgh) there are good reasons for all of those listed:

Titfield Thunderbolt. 7B+ to 7A. - Will's a lanky sod
Colt 45. 7C to soft 7A. - Will's a lanky sod (and the FA is tiny)
Big Fish. 7B (given 7C in some places I think!) to 6C+. - Will's a lanky sod (and guidebook grade wrong)
The Groove (Caley). 7A to 6B+. - Will's a lanky sod
Losing My Edge. 7C to 7A+ (TBF you do need a bit of lank) - Will's a lanky sod (and new sequence found)

 

Grades to me are just a way of comparing different climbs against each other - not a way to compare climbs against an absolute notion of difficulty. So 7A is better defined as a collection of climbs that are about the same difficulty

I think this is problematic, as very few boulders actually bear much resemblance to others. It's not so bad when the problems climb over the same rough bit of rock (Demon Wall Roof, for example) but even then there can be massive variances.

And that's without taking account of the significant differences climbers can feel day-to-day when climbing, conditions, styles, climbing history/skillset, whether you had a good night's sleep, etc., as well as progression.

If I do a 7C, and then a year later do another one, how can I possibly compare the two effectively when I've presumably racked up a year of climbing and training in between, and a vast array of factors are almost certain to have changed? Unless you assume you're on one big plateau all the time. Or you go back immediately and do the first one to compare, which no one does.

If you approach it in that way, you're trying to compare something which is fixed (the problem), using a measure that is swirling, nebulous and entirely changeable (your skills, strength, mentality, health, opinions, etc.).

I don't necessarily have an alternative though.