I have no opinion on Egrades but it is brought to you by "Reyt" and can I just say I hate that fucking deliberately faux-spelling of words in a Sheffield accent that you see around these days. Get in the bin on that affront alone.
Despite all the fancy talk of algorithms etc. it's basically just an old fashioned grade conversion chart that probably work just as well (i.e. not very) on paper.
The process of grading trad routes shouldn't be that difficult. ...How is the below so complicated to use as a guide:For averagely safe routes5 - 5+ E16a-6a+ E2 6b-6b+ E36c-6c+ E47a-7a+ E57b-7b+ E67c-7c+ E78a-8a+ E88b-8b+ E98c-8c+ E109a-9a+ E119b-9b+ E12Bold/scary/long runouts but not exceptionally dangerous +1 E-gradeExceptionally dangerous +2 E-gradesExceptionally safe -1 E-grade
And E grades are actually (or at least should be) incredibly simple, both for low grade routes and at the top end.They answer very successfully one simple question. How big a deal overall is an ascent of route X in any particular style.
The exceptions are usually when there's a particularly desperate to read sequence or some vital obscure gear which wouldn’t normally be carried.
But in reality on 99% of routes E grades work just as well for headpoints, flashes, in a day ascents or onsights. In other words, it's reasonably rare for a route to be massively harder or easier relative to other routes for any particular style. Left Wall is roughly 3 grades easier to onsight than Right Wall but it would also be roughly 3 grades easier to headpoint than Right Wall. The same would apply to comparing Silly Arete to Resurrection to Hunger. Each is going to be one grade harder than the previous one regardless of whether you are onsighting or headpointing
A better E GraderIf they'd avoided all the fanfare, not pretended it was using algorithms or doing anything clever, not attempted to apply it to anything under E5 where everything works perfectly fine already, this might have been better received.IMO, a better eGrader is simply this and requires precisely 8 lines of text:Proposed boundaries for totally safe climbs (ie: U.S P.G rating):7a+ - 7b routes would be E57b+ - 7c routes would be E67c+ - 8a routes would be E7 8a+ - 8b routes would be E8 8b+ - 8c routes would be E9 8c+ - 9a routes would be E10 9a+ - 9b routes would be E11 (currently aren't any trad routes of this physical difficulty)9b+ - 9c routes would be E12 (currently aren't any trad routes of this physical difficulty)
1. whether an E grade is consistent when measured against other headpoint routes and 2. Superfluous if a French grade is provided as you can safely establish the other factors when working it
What's the basis for squeezing 2 sport grades in to one trad grade?
Surely a bit of beef and armchair downgrading of each other’s routes would be more fun than this?
Steve McClure takes a logical stance: "The basic point is, a mathematical model can't be argued with. Because a mathematical model takes a large amount of data, and for a grading system ideally all of the routes will lie on a linear graph, precisely because grading is linear!
Steve McClure takes a logical stance: "The basic point is, a mathematical model can't be argued with. Because a mathematical model takes a large amount of data, and for a grading system ideally all of the routes will lie on a linear graph, precisely because grading is linear! The eGrader converter has used a large number of known routes with widely agreed grades to create the linear graph - and it works. Routes that now lie outside the linear line can be discussed as to why they lie outside the linear line. [If] there is no reason for them to be outside the line, then the grade needs to be changed (up or down)."
What struck me about reading the ukc back n forth about 'linear' versus 'normal distribution' is that you could flip the object of the grading system to not grade 'climbs' but instead use it to grade 'climbers'.