[MischaHY]

I'm incredibly bad at this. I can sort of assign difficulty to single moves because they're comparable with easier grades where I have mileage but have a really hard time working out where the final difficulty sits.

For example my current board project is three 7A/7A+ single moves i.e. each move feels around that hard alone. This is followed by a somewhat easier but still hard move probably ~6C.

Where should the difficult broadly lie? I'm guessing 7C+/8Aish but have no idea if I'm overstating the difficulty of doing a few 7A+ moves in a row.

Curious if there is an easy formular for this?

[Wellsy]

I always struggle with this too. My general thought is that you can easily get too tied up on individual move difficulty, and I try to assess overall difficulty and only think of the hardness of individual moves when they're way harder than the rest of the problem. Like recent I was trying something where I can consistently do the first three moves, and then fourth (which I had done in isolation) was way harder and shutting me down. So in that case I'd probably say the grade of that move +1 grade overall. But if it was a 7A+ move then another then another to me that must be at least 7C

[remus]

For what it's worth, I plugged 3x 7A moves with no rest in to https://darth-grader.net/Console which suggests a route grade of 8b/+, then converting that to a boulder grade using the ircra scale https://www.ircra.rocks/single-post/2016/09/12/reporting-grades-in-climbing-research suggests 7C+/8A is about right #science

[MischaHY]

Well as of a couple of minutes ago it's no longer a project 

I'm pretty confident to say it's the hardest boulder I've ever done which makes me want to say 8A but I've only ever done one 8A so have no idea about the grade really. My gradar loses accuracy at around 7B tbh.

Either way pretty happy with it as regardless of grade it's my longest running project (that I've actually ticked). I originally defined the moves as individual one rep max boulders and it took three sessions just to do them all individually so it's felt pretty bonkers starting to link them. I think I'll do this methodology again for the next project as it felt like it created something really maximal that was also still definitely within reach.

[User deactivated.]

Just compare how hard the whole boulder feels in comparison to known boulder problems in a similar style. That should get you to around +/- 1 grade. This probably doesn't work for indoor/board problems but I suppose it doesn't really matter what grade something is inside?

[36chambers]

Rightly or wrongly, I always seem to default to how well I'd expect various people would do on a given climb.

For example, if I could imagine Will Hunt being able to do something, then there's absolutely no way it's harder than 7C, and so forth

[MischaHY]

For what it's worth, I plugged 3x 7A moves with no rest in to https://darth-grader.net/Console which suggests a route grade of 8b/+, then converting that to a boulder grade using the ircra scale https://www.ircra.rocks/single-post/2016/09/12/reporting-grades-in-climbing-research suggests 7C+/8A is about right #science

Ah nice. I looked at the grade calculator and was disappointed you can't add up boulder grades to make a boulder grade!

[AMorris]

Rightly or wrongly, I always seem to default to how well I'd expect various people would do on a given climb.

For example, if I could imagine Will Hunt being able to do something, then there's absolutely no way it's harder than 7C, and so forth

This is the grade calculator the world really needs.

[jwi]

This whole thing is so strange to me. The subjective difficulty of individual move varies so much, but thanks to central tendency of averages it is easier to estimate the subjective difficulty long boulders and even easier to estimate the difficulty of a route.

In practice people also give widely different grades to one move wonders. A friend thought Hale Bopp was about 7A+ when the first ascensionist gave it 8A+. No two climbers would ever disagree a full number grade on something with 15 sustained moves (unless it is the same move over and over, and that move is extremely morpho).

[remus]

No two climbers would ever disagree a full number grade on something with 15 sustained moves (unless it is the same move over and over, and that move is extremely morpho).

Spoken like a true route climber! You've obviously not seen many extremely unfit boulderers trying stamina problems 

[abarro81]

This whole thing is so strange to me. The subjective difficulty of individual move varies so much, but thanks to central tendency of averages it is easier to estimate the subjective difficulty long boulders and even easier to estimate the difficulty of a route.

I concur. I feel like I might be able to have a good stab at grading a normal or long boulder but would really struggle to grade individual moves. As well as the "averaging" nature of more moves, I've done a lot more problems with 4-10 moves than single-movers, meaning that my reference points are far more numerous and wide-ranging across styles for whole boulders. Especially as I can't think of that many one-movers that aren't dynos.

Overall 3x 7A/+ moves in a row sounds a notch easier than 7C+/8A to me; if I try to think of a move-by-move breakdown of something at that level at Kudos wall or Crag X I'd say they're  harder... but then like I said I find it hard to grade individual moves!

[Will Hunt]

Rightly or wrongly, I always seem to default to how well I'd expect various people would do on a given climb.

For example, if I could imagine Will Hunt being able to do something, then there's absolutely no way it's harder than 7C, and so forth

This is the grade calculator the world really needs.

I'm actually really flattered. I wouldn't back myself to do a 7C even as an absolute max. Thanks 36c 

[Bradders]

This whole thing is so strange to me. The subjective difficulty of individual move varies so much, but thanks to central tendency of averages it is easier to estimate the subjective difficulty long boulders and even easier to estimate the difficulty of a route.

I concur. I feel like I might be able to have a good stab at grading a normal or long boulder but would really struggle to grade individual moves. As well as the "averaging" nature of more moves, I've done a lot more problems with 4-10 moves than single-movers, meaning that my reference points are far more numerous and wide-ranging across styles for whole boulders. Especially as I can't think of that many one-movers that aren't dynos.

Overall 3x 7A/+ moves in a row sounds a notch easier than 7C+/8A to me; if I try to think of a move-by-move breakdown of something at that level at Kudos wall or Crag X I'd say they're  harder... but then like I said I find it hard to grade individual moves!

You certainly can grade single moves, quite a few non-dyno problems spring to mind; Inaudible Vaudeville at the Stone, Underpants at Earl, Dreamland at Almscliff, Phoenix Wall near Pateley, Wooly Mammoth at Hollin. Etc.

Obviously they all have a move or two additional to 'the' move, but the problems are defined by one move and the difficulty comes from doing that one move. So then it's just a case of imagining doing, say, the move on Inaudible followed by the move on say Wooly Mammoth.

In terms of a grade calculator for boulders I've always thought it's (the V grades of the two problems, +4) / 2.

E.g. for the OP you could say:

(6+6+4)/2=V8
(8+6+4)/2=V9

Or

(6+6+6+4)/2=V11

Although that formula isn't really designed for linking 3 problems together and gives a fairly high result in my opinion. Intuitively I'd have thought 3x 7A moves would be about 7C at most.

[abarro81]

Oh yeah, I'm not saying you can't, I just think that it's harder because 1. there's no averaging effect so opinions are more likely to diverge and 2. I've done a lot more boulders that aren't one move - so, taking the example here, if you take a 4ish move 7C-8A boulder I probably have a decent amount of things to compare it against (especially if you include indoors), but if you take a 1 move 7A or 7A+ I've got very few I can think of to compare against that aren't a dyno (and those that aren't a dyno are usually a big slap move). Could just be what I happen to have climbed, but flicking through my mental guide to the peak I don't think so. Obviously there's also the issue that a 1 move 7A into a 1 move 7A could vary wildly depending on exactly how move 1 leaves you set up for move 2 etc... so it just seems easier to grade the whole thing!

[jwi]

I would think that three 7A boulders in a row without intermittent rests is ≈ 7C (and the only type of 7C boulder I would have any chance doing), but I would never trust myself to be able to reliably identify the difficulty of a single move.

[Duma]

If three (multi move) 7A boulders are approx 7C, then I'd suggest three 7A moves are less than 7C, unless they're very similar moves.

[MischaHY]

Nice discussion. I think the answer is clear and it's to go spend some time on lovely steep Swiss granite to get some comparisons at the grade. The reason I'm so uncertain on grading is mainly just from using bouldering as a training tool indoors but then going route climbing all the time outside so I've not got enough mileage at specific grades. It feels way harder than recent 7Cs I've done outdoors though so I'm confident that I'm in the right ballpark.

Bloody grades eh. Video here in case anybody cares!

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CgMlUdnoU7s/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

[Wellsy]

Peak male performance right there

(Good effort lad)

[Bradders]

Huh, I didn't realise it was on a board! Can't be more than 7B in that case 

[MischaHY]

Peak male performance right there

(Good effort lad)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gmzX4FeDpXc