[Idol eyes]

Gritstone is unique rock... as is Font and Hueco, they have independent grading systems, so the confusion between which one to use leads to the shocking assumption that niether of them work for Grit! (stupid icon insert)!!!
Gritstone problems are all 6B, some are just harder, and some easier!
English 8a exists on the crags, all we have to do is climb it!

[slackline]

Educating people to respect rock has nothing whatsoever to do with the grades that are used for boulder problems.

True but it has a lot to do with where the uneducated end up going.

Surely a decent guide to Sounthern Sandstone would sort that out, and help with the education (guide for S. Sandstone I've got is pretty old and gives most things English Tech grades not sure if there is a new one with V/Font grades that those who've only been indoors would understand).

[i.munro]

Surely a decent guide to Sounthern Sandstone would sort that out, and help with the education (guide for S. Sandstone I've got is pretty old and gives most things English Tech grades not sure if there is a new one with V/Font grades that those who've only been indoors would understand).

Yep there's an excellent guide that(sensibly) uses Bleau grades.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for any of the walls in London.
The result - total confusion.

[Aussiegav]

climbing and all forms of it are for hardened northern folk built with character and back bone.

Those soft southern london folk should stick to southern activities such as hair product, shopping and minding the gap.
even God agrees, southern sandstone is soft and fragile in small quantities because its not meant to be climbed.

Total confusion will always exist  'down south' because its God's way of keeping you cockney infedels out of yorkshire and northumberland. God doesn't want londoners to climb and certainly not to venture into His County and climb on His rock.
 

[Jim]

Yep there's an excellent guide that(sensibly) uses Bleau grades.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said for any of the walls in London.
The result - total confusion.

Yeah cos climbing inddors is so much like real climbing 

[i.munro]

Yeah cos climbing inddors is so much like real climbing 

Well that certainly adds to the confusion but at the one wall I've been to in the S that uses Bleau grades it's pretty clear that 6A requires a fair degree of competence whereas V3 in London seems to be a grade for strong tall first-timers.

[Johnny Brown]

Sounds exactly right then.

[Sloper]

Indeed, V grades are about strength, stamina and power; font grades are about technique, balance and skill.

[slackline]

Aaaand the thread has come full circle   

[SA Chris]

Indeed, V grades are about strength, stamina and power; font grades are about technique, balance and skill.

Ahahaha.

Of the top of my head;

Castle Hill uses in NZ has V grades.
Castle Rock near San Francisco has V grades.
All the Southern Sanstone in the US has V grades.

I'm sure there are many other places which show the utter stupidity of this statement.

[Sloper]

Each area in the US used to have its own grading system, from Smith Rocks in the north down to J Tree in the south.

The V grade was only invented in the early 90's, it's spread is like the clap, just because it's popular doesn't necessarily make it any good.

One of the reasons it's used here is because of the attempt to come up with a brit specific bouldering system, the B grade and that this was easier to correlate with the V grade than with font.

As for V grades being about power etc, my tongue was firmly in my cheek but seriously which do you reckon a strong newbie would be more likely to do, 45 degree wall at Hueco or l' angle jean luc?

[SA Chris]

Each area in the US used to have its own grading system, from Smith Rocks in the north down to J Tree in the south.

Yes and they were all the same grade - YDS for routes, and V for boulders, see Stone Crusade. And these grades are used a lot further north and south than your examples.

The V grade was only invented in the early 90's, it's spread is like the clap, just because it's popular doesn't necessarily make it any good.

Actually it was earlier than that. I'm not saying it's good or not, you can't quantify how good or bad a grading system is, it does what it is meant to do.

One of the reasons it's used here is because of the attempt to come up with a brit specific bouldering system, the B grade and that this was easier to correlate with the V grade than with font.

Bollocks m'lud. And Bollocks irrelevant to your post more specifically.

but seriously which do you reckon a strong newbie would be more likely to do, 45 degree wall at Hueco or l' angle jean luc?

Depends purely on the size of the holds and the grade of the 45 degree wall surely? And does it matter which one he is more likely to do? And which one a weak newbie is likely to do?

For a lawyer you certainly are shit at producing logical arguments.

[Sloper]

No the areas had their own grading systems, I'll dig out an old guide.

Anyway this isn't an argument.

And I'm right.

And I am not taking it serioously otherwise I owuld of course used some latin.

[benpritch]

sa chris -

the reason stone crusade has v grades is because it was written by john sherman who invented v grades (v is for vermin, his nick name i think).

john gill definitely had his own system which was beautiful in it's simplicity B1, B2 and B3. IIRC - B3 was for a boulder that had been climbed once only, B2 was a boulder that had been repeated by it's originator and B1 was everything else - genius.

yosemite used a variation of the standard yds.

v grades  probably were invented around the end of the 80s early nineties during the boom years of hueco bouldering development, that's when js and others were most prolific.

[clm]

As for V grades being about power etc, my tongue was firmly in my cheek but seriously which do you reckon a strong newbie would be more likely to do, 45 degree wall at Hueco or l' angle jean luc?

The grades for areas/rock types point is still ludicrous. Its like claiming that if an object can be described in one language then it is inappropriate to describe it in another. This is clearly merde de monsieur le vache.
Ease of use is another issue but even so, describing something in one language is no less valid tnan describing it in a language which is more difficult to use.

[Idol eyes]

A moot point!

[Bubba]

The grades for areas/rock types point is still ludicrous. Its like claiming that if an object can be described in one language then it is inappropriate to describe it in another. This is clearly merde de monsieur le vache.

The truth.

[Paul B]

The grades for areas/rock types point is still ludicrous. Its like claiming that if an object can be described in one language then it is inappropriate to describe it in another. This is clearly merde de monsieur le vache.

The truth.

I'm not 100% convinced. Grade scales derived in one area to accurately describe the difficulty of problems (similar style) there are likely to be more appropriate than others derived from something else. Your language anaology doesn't hold true; there are certain words within languages that DO NOT have a direct translation, just like 7b+ between V and Font.
You can look at this in other grading scales. Yank trad and E grades perhaps? Would anyone have the guts to argue that the Brit tech scale works well for sustained crack pitches?

[dave]

I'm with Callum on this one. I notice font grades work fine on peak limestone and the cave.

[Jim]

Would anyone have the guts to argue that the Brit tech scale works well for sustained crack pitches?

Of course not because it only indicates the difficulty of the hardest move. Nothing else.
Long live brit tech grades!

[Sloper]

I love this, I can imagien Cockfax weeping into their decaff tea when they read this stream of pure drivel.

Now what's your favourit biscuit and is Mick a cvnt?

[SA Chris]

I'm with Callum on this one. I notice font grades work fine on peak limestone and the cave.

And Dumbarton, and just about all the bouldering in Scotland, sedimentary or otherwise.

This discussion is heading towards the log pile though.

[Johnny Brown]

I'm not 100% convinced. Grade scales derived in one area to accurately describe the difficulty of problems (similar style) there are likely to be more appropriate than others derived from something else. Your language anaology doesn't hold true; there are certain words within languages that DO NOT have a direct translation, just like 7b+ between V and Font.

The language analogy isn't brilliant. I think inches and centimetres would be more appropriate. 12" doesn't have a direct translation in cm, does that make it a less valid measurement?

[Richie Crouch]

I love this, I can imagien Cockfax weeping into their decaff tea when they read this stream of pure drivel.

Now what's your favourit biscuit and is Mick a cvnt?

Chocolate Hob nobs, yes and a combination of Font and French sport grades in the cave 

[Stu Littlefair]

The language analogy isn't brilliant. I think inches and centimetres would be more appropriate. 12" doesn't have a direct translation in cm, does that make it a less valid measurement?

Not that I'm interested in this debate, which is clearly ridiculous, but I reply to this because I simply couldn't pass up an opportunity to nerd out. Your length scale analogy is closer than a language based one, but still doesn't hit the spot, because length is a continuous scale with infinitesimally small divisions.

Grades, by contrast, are a discrete scale. More like the integer number set. Imagine an isolated tribe, who have only discovered odd numbers. Their counting is only approximate, and goes 1..3..5... Obviously, if someone gives them two beans, they know it's somewhere between 1 and 3. You might think of this as the equivalent of V8+ Another isolated tribe only knows the even numbers.

One day, the tribes meet, and decide to trade sheep. They are both perfectly convinced they know how many sheep they own. In fact, even if there counting systems were reversed, they would still be confident in their amount of sheep*. However, for some reason, they cannot agree on a trade.

That's what grades are - badly counted sheep.