[CrimpyMcCrimpface]

I'm glad we're singing from the same hymn sheet then. Funny that there doesn't seem to be any guidance anywhere written down to delineate these matters.

E.g. just as an example for short bouldery routes where the main event is the crux:

Font 7A crux - French 7c...sorry can't think of one...
Font 7A+ - French 7c+ (The Pinch Test, Rubicon, The Maximum at Malham)
Font 7B - French 8a (Rattle and Hump/ Out of my Tree)
Font 7B+ - French 8a+ (Energy Vampire)
Font 7C - French 8b (Magnetic Fields/ Revelations)

Font 7C+ - French 8c (Make it Funky). Shame that Pump up the Power 8a+ breaks this system with a Font 7c+ crux!! albeit with next to no other climbing

That all makes sense. As another example for 7A+ = 7c+; This is the Sea at Chee Dale Cornice is exactly this.

Little Plum (bottom section) at Garage / Stoney

[petejh]

Wirral Whip (Llanddulas Cave). Font 7A/+. French 7c+

[Kingy]

Some good examples there. Its not a perfect system, just a rough guide really with the Tor being a bit prone to harder cruxes for a given French grade, e.g. in retrospect the overall Font grade of the whole of Rattle and Hump and Out of My Tree the routes (and not just the boulder problem starts) is probably Font 7B+ and not Font 7B. But I digress.

The point being in general that it should be impossible for a short boulder route to get below a certain French grade if it has a boulder problem of a certain Font grade. So Font 7B+ should equate to French 8a+ or so in this style of route.

[Stabbsy]

Sorry but no way is the start of Subculture that hard!
But also tricky to give a boulder grade to. I'd say it was a 7c or 7c+ to the rest.

On the basis that it's roughly two 7A/V6 boulder problems back to back with no rest. Then using the standard equation; (6+6+4)/2= V8 or 7B, rounding up because V8 is a weird grade.

It's probably just wrong to give it a boulder grade though really, 7c+ route makes more sense. It's never taken me 8 sessions to do any other 7B at least 

I can remember thinking 7B until I did it, then 7A+ after. Dropped the move into the undercut a couple of times and then (my mate) found a better way of doing the moves past the sidepulls/undercuts and did it straight away. I hadn’t done anything harder than 7B+ at the time so no way it was that hard.

[Aussiegav]

What about Too Old to be Bold @ WCJ?  How hard is the crux on that?  Route = 7c

[Kingy]

What about Too Old to be Bold @ WCJ?  How hard is the crux on that?  Route = 7c

Can't be more than Font 7A I reckon.

I agree Entree at Lower 2 Tier is Font 7B+ and therefore French 8a+. Always was a sandbag at 8a

[Bradders]

I guess it possibly is though I've also heard slightly easier for the boulder grade - still too hard for me. My comment was very much from a personal perspective that climbing 7B+ (0) is harder than 8a (2), ymmv

Sorry but no way is the start of Subculture that hard!
But also tricky to give a boulder grade to. I'd say it was a 7c or 7c+ to the rest.

On the basis that it's roughly two 7A/V6 boulder problems back to back with no rest. Then using the standard equation; (6+6+4)/2= V8 or 7B, rounding up because V8 is a weird grade.

It's probably just wrong to give it a boulder grade though really, 7c+ route makes more sense. It's never taken me 8 sessions to do any other 7B at least 

I can remember thinking 7B until I did it, then 7A+ after. Dropped the move into the undercut a couple of times and then (my mate) found a better way of doing the moves past the sidepulls/undercuts and did it straight away. I hadn’t done anything harder than 7B+ at the time so no way it was that hard.

Forgive me bleating on about this, I just find it fascinating reading these when I'm coming from completely the other end of the spectrum; in the context that, without tooting the old horn too much, I've done >300 7A+ - 7B+ boulder problems and very, very few of them took me even half the time it did to climb from the ground to the first jugs on Subculture.

With that in mind, it's easy to see how even 7B+ just doesn't make sense as an accurate way to describe the difficulties, so clearly my original suggestion was complete nonsense. As you were 

[Kingy]

Forgive me bleating on about this, I just find it fascinating reading these when I'm coming from completely the other end of the spectrum; in the context that, without tooting the old horn too much, I've done >300 7A+ - 7B+ boulder problems and very, very few of them took me even half the time it did to climb from the ground to the first jugs on Subculture.

With that in mind, it's easy to see how even 7B+ just doesn't make sense as an accurate way to describe the difficulties, so clearly my original suggestion was complete nonsense. As you were 

I think Subculture is a tricky one to shoehorn into the boulder route category as its more like a conventional sport route where power endurance and stamina kick in. The reason why people fall off the hard bit is usually because their power fails, not cos they can't do the moves.

The reason why most of the boulder routes on the list are in the Peak is because they really are short, glorified boulder problems for the most part (e.g Rattle and Hump etc) with hardly any other climbing of note. Perhaps it is misleading to read too much into all this as we all know that when different energy systems other than pure power kick in, bouldering only takes you so far! From a personal perspective, this year I have focussed less on bouldering and tied in more and think mileage on different routes seems to be a better plan of attack for limit sport climbs than a pre-occupation with training and bouldering.

[Will Hunt]

I guess it possibly is though I've also heard slightly easier for the boulder grade - still too hard for me. My comment was very much from a personal perspective that climbing 7B+ (0) is harder than 8a (2), ymmv

Sorry but no way is the start of Subculture that hard!
But also tricky to give a boulder grade to. I'd say it was a 7c or 7c+ to the rest.

On the basis that it's roughly two 7A/V6 boulder problems back to back with no rest. Then using the standard equation; (6+6+4)/2= V8 or 7B, rounding up because V8 is a weird grade.

It's probably just wrong to give it a boulder grade though really, 7c+ route makes more sense. It's never taken me 8 sessions to do any other 7B at least 

I can remember thinking 7B until I did it, then 7A+ after. Dropped the move into the undercut a couple of times and then (my mate) found a better way of doing the moves past the sidepulls/undercuts and did it straight away. I hadn’t done anything harder than 7B+ at the time so no way it was that hard.

Forgive me bleating on about this, I just find it fascinating reading these when I'm coming from completely the other end of the spectrum; in the context that, without tooting the old horn too much, I've done >300 7A+ - 7B+ boulder problems and very, very few of them took me even half the time it did to climb from the ground to the first jugs on Subculture.

With that in mind, it's easy to see how even 7B+ just doesn't make sense as an accurate way to describe the difficulties, so clearly my original suggestion was complete nonsense. As you were 

Yep, it's just that although it's one section of a longer route, it's still too long to describe with a boulder grade. You're loads stronger than me on the boulders and I linked through to the rest on my third session - the second of those sessions was an evening when much of the time was spent glueing the good hold at the end of the difficulties.
(Not meant to be a flex, just to reinforce my point).

[RobK]

Forgive me bleating on about this, I just find it fascinating reading these when I'm coming from completely the other end of the spectrum; in the context that, without tooting the old horn too much, I've done >300 7A+ - 7B+ boulder problems and very, very few of them took me even half the time it did to climb from the ground to the first jugs on Subculture.

With that in mind, it's easy to see how even 7B+ just doesn't make sense as an accurate way to describe the difficulties, so clearly my original suggestion was complete nonsense. As you were 

As well as what Will and Ted said, I think it's very easy to overstate boulder grades when on a rope. I find that the extra faff required to work them and the various logistics involved means that grades you would normally rinse pretty quickly above pads can take a lot longer.

[tim palmer]

I agree Entree at Lower 2 Tier is Font 7B+ and therefore French 8a+. Always was a sandbag at 8a

Obviously horses for courses etc but I think entree is no harder than R and H, also if it is 8a+ then there is only a grade between it and Kali yuga which is a solid 2 grades harder I think (is that still 8b).

[Kingy]

Obviously horses for courses etc but I think entree is no harder than R and H, also if it is 8a+ then there is only a grade between it and Kali yuga which is a solid 2 grades harder I think (is that still 8b).

I hear ya. Its been over a decade since I did either so perhaps some other keen UKBer's could go and do these to compare and contrast? Would be interested in some objective, recent assessment...

[iwasmexican]

isnt the crux on biographie only 7B+

[jwi]

well, it is about 8A to get to the second draw, non?

[Bonjoy]

I've always thought Entree should be 8a+. Way harder than R&H IMO. I did R&H in a session, thought it was one of the easiest 8as I'd ever done, and have still to do Entree, or more accurately have given up trying.

[abarro81]

Ha, I've not done R&H but when I went on it I thought it was harder than almost (all?) 8as I've ever done... The bit after the boulder felt like 7B+ in its own right for me (I think this may be quite specific to me - I felt like the normal sequence just didn't fit)

Ted's list doesn't quite work because this only works if the boulder grade is for the whole route (i.e. from pulling on the clipping the chains), not the crux.
e.g.
- OOMT is 7B start but if you include the bit going left it would probably be 7B+
- MIF is never 7C+ for the whole sequence, it's much harder
- Revelations and Magnetic it doesn't quite work because they're not isolated boulders with no climbing before/after

Anyway... just add 3 grades and it works about right i.e. a long 7B+ = a short 8a, like we had at the start. Which of course means that Jim was smoking crack to think that 7B+ into a bunch more climbing could be 7c+...

[IanP]

Anyway... just add 3 grades and it works about right i.e. a long 7B+ = a short 8a, like we had at the start. Which of course means that Jim was smoking crack to think that 7B+ into a bunch more climbing could be 7c+...

At lower grades I always worked on this basis - looking at it the other way longer 7As (e.g. Gorilla Warfare, Green Traverse) seemed to feel around equivalent to a 7b+ in terms of effort for me.

[Will Hunt]

looking at it the other way longer 7As (Green Traverse) seemed to feel around equivalent to a 7b+ in terms of effort for me.

I hope you mean the Green Traverse at Shipley Glen as opposed to that path at Stanage. The Glen version is given 7A and feels 7b+ to me.

[Dexter]

Anyway... just add 3 grades and it works about right i.e. a long 7B+ = a short 8a, like we had at the start. Which of course means that Jim was smoking crack to think that 7B+ into a bunch more climbing could be 7c+...

At lower grades I always worked on this basis - looking at it the other way longer 7As (e.g. Gorilla Warfare, Green Traverse) seemed to feel around equivalent to a 7b+ in terms of effort for me.

If we're looking at it the other way, isn't left wall traverse at parisellas considered somewhere around 7c (maybe+) but is 7B boulder. This would break the algorithm for calculating it here. Unless it's actually 7A+

[petejh]

Having a hands-off kneebar rest 3/4 way along helps keep the grade lower. If you had sustained climbing non-stop into the easy, but easily droppable when pumped finish then it would be more like hard french 7c+ imo.

[Dinodinosaur]

Reputedly Breathing Method at the cuttings is a V8 crux surrounded by trivial climbing and gets given 8a route. Next door in a similar style is hall of mirrors with a V5 crux and that gets soft 7c.

[abarro81]

As I already said, you have to grade from leaving the floor to clipping the chains. Easy climbing into a 7B probably ends up being 7B+...

[remus]

As I already said, you have to grade from leaving the floor to clipping the chains. Easy climbing into a 7B probably ends up being 7B+...

Can confirm. The start of breathing method has a few moves in to the boulder problem and it definitely feels pretty 8a+ to me (or a grade harder than fighting torque).

[cowboyhat]

There are loads and loads of routes on peak lime with relatively steady bits either side of a crux boulder problem which is the real meat of the route.

In the Font 7b+ range i immediately think of Zeke which before and after the crux is about sport 7b = Route gets 8b.

So Jim's maths are wrong and the first ascensionist might be closer....?

[Stewart]

So, i've worked a very short route. 3 bolts. 6 move 7B+/7C boulder problem off the ground to a decent hold, then 3 move 7A/+ boulder problem to the lip. I've hardly done any sport climbing so struggling to grade it (if i ever actually get it done). Was thinking about 8a but judging by this thread it should be more like 8a+/8b?