[highrepute]

Yeah, I think this is quite interesting.
It may just be my impression, but I feel like fewer people are good at onsight vs redpoint than they were 10-12 years back. E.g. I remember thinking that it was quite normal for someone to have a max onsight/flash of 8a and max redpoint 8b (or 7c/8a or 7b/7c etc.), and that 3 grades would be average (so 8a o/s = 8b+ RP). Nowadays I feel like that gap might be bigger because of people's choices around what to focus on. This may be a skewed perception only, and if you'd tracked it via a survey you'd find it's exactly the same now as it was then, but if it is a reality then correlation-type models won't tell you you're a shit onsighter because all your peers are too. Or maybe people used to be shit redpointers 

I'm sure that's just perception. I also thought that 10 years ago but at the time I spent loads of time climbing abroad, which meant onsighting lots, and also climbing lots with people who onsighted lots abroad. There are, presumably, young people with free time still doing this we're just not aware.

Now I only ever route climb with people trying Mecca and it's extensions and none of them have onsighted it.

[abarro81]

There are, presumably, young people with free time still doing this we're just not aware.

Probably more old people with free time (and defined benefit pensions schemes) doing it than young!
But you may well be right - thinking about it, it could easily mostly be a function of age and rate of improvement (young people haven't bothered projecting yet). Could also be a function of the growth of climbing - if there used to be 1 person you knew who had a full number grade between o/s and RP (e.g. 7c/8c) then now there are 3, so it seems more common but may still be a similar proportion.

[jwi]

Pierre Délas made the same observation a while ago
https://fanatic-climbing.com/ou-est-passe-le-a-vue-what-happened-to-onsighting/

I think there is something to it, and I think that the explanation is fairly simple. People spend a lot of time in parkour/bouldering facilities and practicing difficult moves a lot, but little time on climbing walls with straightforward setting and doesn't practice easy moves a lot. It is difficult to onsight when you cannot cruise easy moves confidently.

anyway, that is my hypothesis.

[Stu Littlefair]

Maybe not ten years ago, but going back 20 years it was deeply uncool to spend months sieging a route.

Going back even further, Mark Leach’s 46 days on Cry Freedom was a legendary outlier in the late 80’s. I suspect it’s rather commonplace now, especially amongst older climbers who are trying to “reach their potential” 

May not explain it all, but probably plays a role.

And don’t get me started on useless benchmarks turning out to be useless at predicting performance...

[Fiend]

Maybe not ten years ago, but going back 20 years it was deeply uncool to spend months sieging a route.

Isn't that pretty much the time shark started on the Oak??

[mrjonathanr]

There was a time when ‘days working’ a route was seen as a euphemism for how long you had been failing.

I know and climb with some pretty handy trad climbers. My preference for launching up things onsight is not shared by everyone, regardless of ability.

[Oldmanmatt]

I remember being slagged off severely for “Dogging” Sport routes, in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s (a thing that vanished when I moved to France in ‘96). I can’t recall when I first heard the term “Red point”, it was always “Dogging”. Quite glad that’s changed, it could make for some amusing misunderstandings.

[mrjonathanr]

Going back even further, Mark Leach’s 46 days on Cry Freedom was a legendary outlier

Thinking about Mandela, the Froggatt crack... not for Mark it wasn’t! You could say he was ahead of the curve.

[moose]

Personal experience is that the best way to get an O/S grade that more closely matches the RP grade is to have more holidays abroad.

 Pretty much all my UK climbing is at Malham and Kilnsey - where pure on-sights seem really hard (and there are not many opportunities - I picked all the ripest fruit during my rookie years).  My holiday O/S grades are much better, despite those trips usually occurring in Feb, after a 4 month lay-off from routes when I'm at my unfittest. Perhaps soft grading but also the routes tend to be steeper,  with bigger holds and easier to read sequences. And, more endurancy, which is more my bag than the unforgiving bouldery stuff predominant in the UK.

[tomtom]

Pete Robins has some interesting things to say about being good at routes despite being weak on Grimers podcast.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Christmas 85/6.

Devon; just quit school to be a climber.. training twice a day; 100 fingertip pull-ups every night before dinner, 140 push-ups in one go. 47 on one arm.

I've endured a night of apoplexy. My Dad wouldn't let me watch Ron Fawcett, The Fingertip Phenomenon on the telly - he was recording it.

My Mum hands me a present.
It's a copy of Dave Jones' "Rock Climbing in Britain" and I learn that to climb 6b & 6c I need to be able to pull on holds the size of the tape width in a cassette. "A quite athletic person with naturally strong fingers could probably manage a 5a move".

Phew! I'm climbing harder than that (but still remember the fear that someone might find out how much of a close run thing it was).

Mondays in January are for MEDIUM/HARD Aerobic running (and I still think I need to be running like Gary Latter beneath the Cuillin Ridge).

But what's this? Plate 56, and Paul Cropper is climbing Silly Aréte with a gut!

Seriously, I just couldn't compute 

Love the photo of Paul Cornforth on Prostration at Ramshaw. No one has ever looked as good as Lynn Rogers in a pair of EBs 

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Just in case my last post was confusing, it was a reference to the first time I took "benchmarking" a bit too seriously. The references are to the book "Rock Climbing in Britain".

Surely the ability to climb, is
the ability to apply what strengths you have available. It would be interesting to see how well someone like Dave Graham performs in relation to Midtbø's system.

I wouldn't want to dismiss Magnus Midtbø too readily though. I remember reading, about running, that "how you train, is how you race", and I think there's a lot of truth in that. I'm sure it will have influenced how MM put his list together.

[jwi]

I think you have a very good point Dave. Imagine that we would create benchmarks for climbing based on the population of Herman Buhl, Lionel Terrey, Gaston Rebuffat or Anderl Heckmair and their peers. We would conclude that to climb 6c you should be able to do a one-armer on a door post.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

I think you have a very good point Dave. Imagine that we would create benchmarks for climbing based on the population of Herman Buhl, Lionel Terrey, Gaston Rebuffat or Anderl Heckmair and their peers. We would conclude that to climb 6c you should be able to do a one-armer on a door post.

I'm working on it! 

Nibile knows very well that celebrating the ability to perform such feats, and deadlifting 2xBW, should never be reduced to their performance as predictors of climbing prowess!