1

news / Re: significant repeats

« Last post by abarro81 on Today at 09:57:34 pm »

While I see what JB is getting at, in 20 years climbing and 10,000 hours on forums I've never encountered the proposal that an Ex y is a y grade boulder followed by an Ex... Does that make Pilgrimage with the chossy top groove VS 7a?

I don't think this is willfully ignoring context, it's just an idea I've never encountered, and probably makes no sense in various examples (e.g., if a route is a trivial approach to a 7B+ boulder with baby bouncer protection to a scary E4, is that also E4 7a or is it now E8 7a??!)

2

diet, training and injuries / Re: One for the runners

« Last post by SA Chris on Today at 09:23:13 pm »

Then all the other shoes companies would all have to follow suit which I don't see happening.

https://www.runningshoesguru.com/2024/04/adidas-almost-completely-sweeps-the-2024-london-marathon-podium/

I've still to see why it's any difference in progress in climbing shoe design, which (I guess) everyone on here grasps with both hands. Or should we all still be wearing PAs?

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news / Re: significant repeats

« Last post by Johnny Brown on Today at 09:21:13 pm »

many people use E grades (particularly those like yourself who don't spend much time climbing safe long cracks etc).

Many others say how hard is it overall…

Many use them both ways. Grades only make sense in the context of the rock they are applied to. That context is always obvious from the guide or the crag, and within that context the grade is just shorthand for various properties of the route, the properties varying with the route. That’s it.

But people sometimes ignore that context. Why would they do that, when the two things are inseparable? Usually because they are hoping to reduce the comparison of apples and oranges to two numbers. This usually falls down, because there are lots of styles of climbing, and lots of types of climbers, and while (I have just discovered) some climbs are harder than others, not in a way that you can predict without knowing the climber and the climb, and even then not reliably. You’re back to context again: the map is not the territory and the grade is not the climb. (Which is what Shark used to think, so let’s not take his views too seriously.)

And I’ve done plenty of long safe cracks thank you very much, although a lot of them were graded YDS. On some E plus tech would have given me more information up front, but on long routes the usual NA approach of grading sub-sections on the topo is better anyway.

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news / Re: significant repeats

« Last post by Fiend on Today at 09:02:30 pm »

I bloody love a THE UK TRAD GRADE IS UTTERLY TERRIBLE / COMPLETELY WONDERFUL FOR GRADING TRAD ROUTES debate, great fodder for "Someone is wrong on the internet". Can we have a topic split and really let rip, please??

5

news / Re: significant repeats

« Last post by Ru on Today at 08:14:29 pm »

I'm with JB on this one. If a grade has to describe how hard something is, E4 7a for WSS makes no sense. If a grade has to describe what to expect, then it works perfectly.

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diet, training and injuries / Re: One for the runners

« Last post by Stabbsy on Today at 07:56:32 pm »

They could, but I don’t think they will. I presume that’s what Duma is getting when he says running has been sold to Nike. For them to close the box, they need to reverse a previous decision and admit it was wrong.

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get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: Changing the BMC

« Last post by shark on Today at 07:38:45 pm »

Don’t forget grant income. The expenditure and shared costs apportionment is in excess of £1million pa.

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diet, training and injuries / Re: One for the runners

« Last post by lukeyboy on Today at 07:23:15 pm »

It's similar to the issue in swimming with skinsuits, though perhaps not quite as pronounced a performance advantage as that. A lot of World records were quickly broken, but interestingly Pandoras box was closed again and WRs with those suits no longer stand.

There's nothing to stop the same thing happening in running, apart from it being too much of a U turn and it's been too long. But in theory they still could if they wanted to.

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diet, training and injuries / Re: One for the runners

« Last post by Stabbsy on Today at 06:07:37 pm »

My only other questions are if they are cheating, who is being cheated & if running is no longer 'pure' what sport is?

Dennis Kimetto. Maybe. Last person to break the marathon world record before Vaporflys changed the game.

The "Maybe" is the problem though. I want to be able to celebrate Kipchoge and Kiptum's performances as being next level, but there's this little itch in the back of my mind that says what if Kimetto or Gebrselassie had those shoes and they were a responder? Could they have done the same? Could they have done better?

Whatever anyone says now, Pandora's Box has been opened and it's not closing again. World Athletics had the opportunity to limit stack height when the Vaporfly had a 39mm stack - with the stack height being fundamental to the way that the current generation of carbon shoes "work". They chose to set a limit of 40mm. At the time, I thought it was the wrong decision and still do.

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get involved: access, environment, BMC / Re: Changing the BMC

« Last post by Davo on Today at 05:20:39 pm »

Hi Simon

I have read it again and I do agree that the figures seem very high and given the money doesn’t go to the actual athletes I am not sure where the money is going.

I still don’t want comp climbing split off completely from the BMC but I do want to understand better and more clearly where the money is going and what on. I think with good financial transparency and clarity would come better management.

Dave