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Indoor-Outdoor Lockdown Grade Inflation. (Read 28162 times)

Fiend

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Indoor-Outdoor Lockdown Grade Inflation.
March 08, 2021, 07:56:35 pm
Is there an official UKB grumpy old sod term for this sort of nonsense yet?? Open to ideas if they're as snappy as "Big Number For Bad Beta"....

I'm sure you know what I mean. It's really kicked off in the last year with everyone and their plastic sensibilities unleashed upon the poor unsuspecting crags and all that entails from bluetooth speakers and chalked footholds visible on Google Earth to some of the most shambolically farcical grading since Will Hunt hit the Peak District that one time....

So you get the sort of Depot-dwelling scrote who actually unironically subscribes to Magnus Mitboe, kicked out of his favourite covid-incubating "indoor gym", trawls around some god forsaken choss heap that Puttrell once went for a post-steak-pie shit in on a trans-Pennine wander, gets unduly excited because now he can be his own route setter, manages to unearth a non-move wonder eliminate sit start to a 4+ that would make even r-man blush and question his morality, and then whops on 7A+ because it's a bit harder than the black circuit etc etc. Put it on UKC with at least 3 stars and a verbose name and and bask in glory that makes doing a comp wall problem seem mundane etc etc....

Even more morally reprehensible than driving 5 minutes to that choss heap in the first place.
Stay Home. Protect The Grading System. Save Blocs.

Wood FT

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More of this. It warms me cockles so it does, Fiend.

mrjonathanr

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Fiend, PLEASE write a guidebook, even if it’s just a critique of which commercial walls allow a tops off gabber vibe at their dingiest bit of woody.

lagerstarfish

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and they attempt to convert everything into V grades

this leads to grade feedback inflation

"feels like V2"
"that's up to Font 6a+"
"that's V3"
"that goes up to 6b"
"felt hard, so give it a +"
"that makes it V4"

SA Chris

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Fiend, PLEASE write a guidebook, even if it’s just a critique of which commercial walls allow a tops off gabber vibe at their dingiest bit of woody.

Boulderwall Shitain. I'm sure Grimer would collaborate.

tomtom

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and they attempt to convert everything into V grades

this leads to grade feedback inflation

"feels like V2"
"that's up to Font 6a+"
"that's V3"
"that goes up to 6b"
"felt hard, so give it a +"
"that makes it V4"

That’s like a grading equivalent of a conversation between two google translate pages...

Will Hunt

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Please provide examples in the form of UKC logbook links and/or Instagram links.

Fiend

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Anything at St Ives Amphitheatre for a start.
























 :lol: sorrynotsorryneverbeenlesssorrryinmylife

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/cown_edge_rocks-9802/eh_up_el_diabolo-578432 there was this gem which you're aware of. There's probably more scattered around. I'm hoping for some further investigation and naming and shaming by UKB roving witchhunters....


« Last Edit: March 08, 2021, 10:33:25 pm by Fiend »

Bradders

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There's this one I came across recently. Done many times before by the locals and basically an easier version of a pre-existing eliminate  :lol:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/woodhouse_scar-1241/shot_in_self_defence-613925

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJbt_qFDo39/?igshid=11093vdgaycja

It's this kind of shit that gives Woodhouse Scar a bad name!

Liamhutch89

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I had the opposite experience of indoor kids being far too good whilst battling with red baron roof at Shipley. A lad who must have been around 18 asked if he could see my beta and jump on it. He'd done the stand for the first time earlier that day and had then spent all day climbing around the glen, the tips of both index fingers already taped up. I had to remind him to clean his shoes before jumping on it as he was wandering off the mats into the mud. He then nearly did it from the start in about 3 goes, cutting loose everywhere but getting away with it anyway, until he was finally off near the top. Sickening. He then left to catch a lift with his mate, seemingly unfazed he'd nearly done RBR in about 5 minutes.

tomtom

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I failed in trying to call out a couple of ‘ascents’ of hard(er) Lancs problems not using the (clearly) described holds/starting positions and then gave up :D

When the walls re-open normal service will resume.

steveri

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Did I tell you about my new crappy squeezed in traverse on the sandstone? Near to someone else’s new roof problem, both took about same effort, one a tentative 6A, the other 6C. The other guy is probably too good to discern the difference though? Grades eh, who’d have them? 🤷‍♂️

Fiend

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I failed in trying to call out a couple of ‘ascents’ of hard(er) Lancs problems not using the (clearly) described holds/starting positions and then gave up :D

When the walls re-open normal service will resume.
You'd think they'd be better are proscribed starts given the blindingly obvious starting tags / rules indoors (although I have seen some awful scum pretending to ignore those indoors too).

LiamHutch - that sort of rot must be stopped too. Get them on some friction slabs or flared offwidth pods or something.

Will Hunt

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 :off: As much as I hate to inject some seriousness into this jolly piss-take, the guy who logged that thing that Fiend is complaining about has been climbing since 2004, albeit with a possible hiatus or just not using the UKC logbooks, resuming in 2015. So they're hardly a complete noob. It's probably just that grading FAs is more often than not complete guesswork.  :off:

Please resume.

Fiend

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This is no place for tolerance or reason! I want to see outrage and vitriol that makes the Derbyshire Times comments section look like a relaxed socially distant 2 person picnic!

cheque

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If you regularly look at the Latest Photos pages on UKC  :guilty: there’s always a steady trickle of topos and FA shots of seriously crap looking new problems. Many are less than 2 metres tall, many on terrible looking rock, some aren’t even on rock at all* and the vast majority look like they’ll never be climbed again. Obviously it’s become a much larger trickle since lockdown.

I love seeing it to be honest. That’s kind of what climbing’s all about** isn’t it? Lots of us have had at least one point in our lives when we’ve done suspect new eliminates/ become briefly obsessed with a truly shit local craglet/ thought we’ve done something new that either isn’t new or is considered totally gauche to claim and I’m sure we all have fond memories of those times. I kind of feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t.

I never think about whether the grades of this new stuff are accurate or not. I guess I just assume that they’re very unlikely to be and that it doesn’t matter because it will be ironed out if it becomes popular and if it doesn’t then no one apart from the FAs mates will ever climb it. Unless people are chipping the problem only really comes when mad stuff is claimed at popular venues but due to absentee UKC logbook moderators (another  :worms: in itself- one bloke moderates about 900 crags, how can that possibly work?!) just sits there without being removed or regraded.

*the UKC logbook pages for non- rock venues are fascinating reading and at one point I was thinking of making a film about the people develop them. I guess the ship has kind of sailed on that since all this bridge crack business

**maybe this is just my opinion

JamieG

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Wow, I thought you were joking and then went and looked. What a goldmine! This was my favourite. Hybrid buildering and bouldering.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/dbpage.php?id=362037

Will Hunt

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dontfollowme

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Wow, I thought you were joking and then went and looked. What a goldmine! This was my favourite. Hybrid buildering and bouldering.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/dbpage.php?id=362037

Quote
The lower line

haha

Stabbsy

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https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/york_urban-10375/thomas_the_lank_engine-618109#overview

Someone brought this to my attention the other day. Having lived 2 minutes walk from the Little Knavesmire “crag”, I’m obviously gutted that I missed out on the opportunity to develop it. If I hadn’t moved I could have had all that potential on my doorstep instead of having to drive 10 minutes to Burbage.

Will Hunt

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 :off: Sorry, seriousness again. Developing new boulders is a funny old thing. If you're a wad you might be able to climb a well-known project and it'll probably be quite good. Or you might be able to climb lots of new stuff which is quite rubbish but, because of the virtue of its difficulty, you won't be mocked for it. For mortals, you tend to have to pan through a lot of dross to find the gold. The more gold you find, the more perspective you get about the quality of the dross. So a less-experienced developer might be really excited about the one-move lowball eliminate Font 2 that they've done - it's their baby - but we have to tolerate a certain amount of over-exuberance or you'll put them off and they'll never get to find their gold. Like in the Detectorists: you've got to dig up a lot of bottle caps to find your Saxon horde. That's not to say that over-graded or over-starred stuff shouldn't be corrected, but it can be done gently.  :offtopic:

As you were.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/dbpage.php?id=362219

Ross Barker

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As you were.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/dbpage.php?id=362219

I'm pretty confident I've lugged my pads down that trying to find the cave at Ippikins...

SA Chris

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Bless them for claiming it tough, that's pretty special.

Oldmanmatt

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I am bitterly disappointed that this thread is not what I thought it would be and  nobody is addressing the Elephant at the crag.

There is not a single example of photographic evidence of the fucking Rock Fairies filing down crimps, cranking up gravity and polishing slopers.
I’m bloody certain it’s been happening whilst I’ve been stuck in lockdown. Even my favourite warm ups have leapt up two letter grades...

Regards,

Mr  T. Antrum,

Torquay.
« Last Edit: March 09, 2021, 02:58:13 pm by Oldmanmatt »

36chambers

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Is this the place for complaining about people claiming pointless eliminate FA's then?

I spotted this one yesterday, which is just a font 3 done with one less move.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/caley_crags-540/the_stotty-524871

Regardless of how worthwhile adding that problem is, I'm genuinely surprised they're claiming it as an FA. I'm sure I'm not that only person who pisses around on the easier boulders at Caley, climbing them in as many ways as possible.

 

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