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the shizzle => bouldering => Topic started by: Fiend on November 18, 2022, 11:58:52 am

Title: How many of the old Peak "B" grades still stand up.
Post by: Fiend on November 18, 2022, 11:58:52 am: Fondly reminiscing with Reeve the other day about B grades in the old Peak Bouldering Rockfax....

Are there any / many, errr, umm, benchmark problems that have maintained their grade when translated from the B grades (which as far as I can recall were V grades plus one? So B7 would be V6 would be 7A....)

Answers on a postcard or indeed in this thread....
Title: Re: How many of the old Peak "B" grades still stand up.
Post by: Wellsy on November 18, 2022, 03:11:08 pm: I'm assuming that's different from the old John Gill B grades?
Title: Re: How many of the old Peak "B" grades still stand up.
Post by: Fiend on November 18, 2022, 04:16:12 pm: There's a clue in

Quote
which as far as I can recall were V grades plus one?
;) :P
Title: Re: How many of the old Peak "B" grades still stand up.
Post by: GCW on November 18, 2022, 04:51:02 pm: https://flic.kr/p/2nZZYdo

EDIT. Sorry, forgotten how to embed pics.
Title: Re: How many of the old Peak "B" grades still stand up.
Post by: jwi on November 18, 2022, 05:09:06 pm: Quote from: GCW on November 18, 2022, 04:51:02 pm
https://flic.kr/p/2nZZYdo

EDIT. Sorry, forgotten how to embed pics.

Not evident for that one, however
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52508535430_537b124d5d_z.jpg)
Title: Re: How many of the old Peak "B" grades still stand up.
Post by: ferret on November 18, 2022, 09:09:37 pm: Off the top of my head I'd say B10 and above mostly stayed +/- 1 grade. B9 and below there's quite a few that changed 2 grades or more from the comparison chart.
Title: Re: How many of the old Peak "B" grades still stand up.
Post by: Wellsy on November 18, 2022, 09:29:01 pm: Call me a worthless gym rat if you will but I will never understand why English Tech Grades are used for bouldering. Like 6c goes from top end font 6C to the bottom of font 7C? Eh?
Title: Re: How many of the old Peak "B" grades still stand up.
Post by: webbo on November 18, 2022, 09:43:54 pm: Quote from: Wellsy on November 18, 2022, 09:29:01 pm
Call me a worthless gym rat if you will but I will never understand why English Tech Grades are used for bouldering. Like 6c goes from top end font 6C to the bottom of font 7C? Eh?
They aren’t.
Title: Re: How many of the old Peak "B" grades still stand up.
Post by: Wellsy on November 18, 2022, 10:08:24 pm: Well good! It's just their inclusion on that table under "bouldering grades" just highlights their bizarre nature for that purpose
Title: Re: How many of the old Peak "B" grades still stand up.
Post by: cheque on November 18, 2022, 11:26:07 pm: They’re on that table so people who only/ mainly climb trad can get some sort of idea of how the bouldering grades relate I think. That feels pretty outdated though because 99+% of climbers become familiar with bouldering or sport grades first nowadays.

British tech grades are basically useless for grading entire boulder problems because they describe the difficulty of single moves (a route or problem with a single 6b crux move gets 6b, as does one where every move is 6b, this is partly why you’ve got the adjective grade before it for trad routes and why the grades overlap so much in that table) and also because, as you say, the harder the moves get the wider the boundaries between the grades become.

The single-move style does make it easy to give people an idea of what a crux move is like “it’s 7A but really it’s just one British 6b move” or “it gets 6C but really there’s nothing harder than British 5c on it” but again that only really works if you’re describing a boulder problem to your fellow grizzled trad mates.

British tech grades have been used for boulder problems in guides in the past but only in the small period between bouldering first being written up in books and B/ Font/ V grades being adopted.