[Fiend]

I've done a fair bit of climbing on limestone, trad and some sport. Not my favourite type of rock but I am getting vaguely into the idea of pushing myself a bit more on the sport side - partly because it's something I haven't tried much, partly because it's convenient, partly because some mates like it.

But there's a catch - this is flashing sport only, not into working stuff yet. And flashing stuff means reading the rock well. And since, to me, limestone is a blotchy and chaotic mess of white/grey/black random choss (can you tell how much I like UK lime aesthetics??), I need to work on that reading.

Which is where the great and good minds of UKB come in....and I'd like your advice and ideas please.

A few things I've come up with:

Feeling around the rock features - cos lime holds can be pretty small and still good, the difference between, say, a flat bit of a flake and an incut bit of a flake can make all the difference.

Looking for ways to use underclings and sidepulls - they seem to feature more than is healthy and can often be the "real" holds to use.

Checking my feet often - small holds and lots of choice, often the key to success.

^^^ all of these are time consuming on the rock so ideas to speed them up are useful.

Also climb more on natural lime which is more featured and harder to read, rather than quarried lime which I prefer but is simpler to read.



Over to you guys...

[webbo]

back in the day when i owned a piece of string.i had managed to wobble,wibble my up to a few e4s.most of the time there might be some flight time involved,often there was some lowering off at least.(this was acceptable then).at the time i could climb grit/sandstone of the same grade in much better style.
when i got in to sports climbing i made a conscious effort not to try and flash routes at first,just dog then out and r/p then.after a while i found i'd developed the fitness,strength and ability to read the rock so could flash things not many grades below my r/p level.
my point being you could dog routes as means to an end.

[Fiend]

Yeah fair point, working out what sort of sequences and holds are generally required could accustom me to seeking and hopefully finding those sort of sequences on the flash.

[Andy F]

Good knowledge from Webo  . I find that my onsight grade improves if I work harder stuff than the grade I onsight. The moves on the routes I work are much harder than the ones on routes I try to onsight (not that I've done much of that this year). This means I have the strength in reserve to do moves onsight. Better to be too strong rather than too fit IMHO.
 

[Norton Sharley]

I find my os grade improves when I have no gear between me and the floor

[DubDom]

I find my os grade improves when I have no gear between me and the floor

Is that when you go bouldering?

[biffer]

I would say climb as much limestone as possible to improve onsight skills.


when in rome... climb like to romans.  I think you'll get much more out of sport routes and improve your allround climbing ability by adopting the full sport ethics while climbing bolts, and inadvertantly you'll improve your rock reading skills.

sorry, second part no help to your origional post.

[erm, sam]

As you said, there are sometimes so many bits that could be holds on limestone roots one often tries out 10 holds for each hand before settling on the one that felt biggest or most incut or what have you. This takes time and interferes with a flowing style.
Obviously, getting better at working out a good sequence is one approach to solve this problem.
An alternative is to get better at using holds that are not parhaps absolutly the best. One often searches around to find the biggest hold possible, when you could do the move using a smaller hold, or a less incut one. It might take more energy to use the slightly non optimum hold, but in some cases that may be offset against the energy used to hold position while the hand paws the rock in a racoon like fashion tryign to find the one 5% better hold.
There is a trade off, sometime the move will only go if the hold is the best possible, often though the move will go smoother and quicker even though the hold is not perfect.
I think you could train this approach. Climbing easier routes making sure you use the first hold you touch will
a. make you better at selecting better holds using visual id
b. make you more confident at climbing using sub optimal holds.
If you know you can do the moves using holds that at first make you go "hmmm", you will only become more confident.

I do think there is something in this, even though I often find that even the biggest possible holds I can find are still too small, never mind the smaller ones....

[Paz]

I'm sure people who think onsighting is part of UK sport climbing can mostly be found a) permanently warming up,  b) on Portland or c) Indoors.  Or they don't own a gri-gri.

Use sport to work out how long you can hang on for, and what you can hang on, by finding your movement limit (ie. by redpointing) and then let this knowledge bring you inner peace that you won't pump out when fiddling in your wires. 

It's only a problem when it's blank, elsewhere there are jugs and crimps (or undercuts and sidepulls down the cornice etc. ).  I asked this an oxymoronic question, and eventually after annoying 100s of 1000s of users of UKC I eventually answered it myself:  Truly blank rock isn't climbable unless it's below the angle of friction or is bypassed.  If you know you're basically on route you've got to concentrate on the fact that the route has been climbed so it is climbable, and you just have to work out how it can be climbed.  If you're really good at this then you can try and work out how the route can be climbed at the grade given in the guidebook, but if you're on esoterica, a sandbag, and/or a Gary Gibson route then by doing that you may be there quite some time.

[Ru]

One of the best ways to improve onsighting on british lime is to redpoint. I'm not talking multi day seiges, but after falling off, work a sequence and have another one or two goes. That way you find out how routes "should" be climbed, and you will spot similar holds and sequences onsight in the future.

[Fiend]

As you said, there are sometimes so many bits that could be holds on limestone roots one often tries out 10 holds for each hand before settling on the one that felt biggest or most incut or what have you. This takes time and interferes with a flowing style.
Obviously, getting better at working out a good sequence is one approach to solve this problem.
An alternative is to get better at using holds that are not parhaps absolutly the best. One often searches around to find the biggest hold possible, when you could do the move using a smaller hold, or a less incut one. It might take more energy to use the slightly non optimum hold, but in some cases that may be offset against the energy used to hold position while the hand paws the rock in a racoon like fashion tryign to find the one 5% better hold.
There is a trade off, sometime the move will only go if the hold is the best possible, often though the move will go smoother and quicker even though the hold is not perfect.
I think you could train this approach. Climbing easier routes making sure you use the first hold you touch will
a. make you better at selecting better holds using visual id
b. make you more confident at climbing using sub optimal holds.
If you know you can do the moves using holds that at first make you go "hmmm", you will only become more confident.

I do think there is something in this, even though I often find that even the biggest possible holds I can find are still too small, never mind the smaller ones....

Top post, this is why I like UKB, hadn't really thought of that and straight up sense. There will be the optimum balance between searching and using....obviously knowing that balance will come from experience but avoiding the trap of going for the perfect sequence you're now too pumped to do is good to be aware of.

[Fiend]

I'm sure people who think onsighting is part of UK sport climbing can mostly be found a) permanently warming up,  b) on Portland or c) Indoors.  Or they don't own a gri-gri.

Use sport to work out how long you can hang on for, and what you can hang on, by finding your movement limit (ie. by redpointing) and then let this knowledge bring you inner peace that you won't pump out when fiddling in your wires. 

It's only a problem when it's blank, elsewhere there are jugs and crimps (or undercuts and sidepulls down the cornice etc. ).  I asked this an oxymoronic question, and eventually after annoying 100s of 1000s of users of UKC I eventually answered it myself:  Truly blank rock isn't climbable unless it's below the angle of friction or is bypassed.  If you know you're basically on route you've got to concentrate on the fact that the route has been climbed so it is climbable, and you just have to work out how it can be climbed.  If you're really good at this then you can try and work out how the route can be climbed at the grade given in the guidebook, but if you're on esoterica, a sandbag, and/or a Gary Gibson route then by doing that you may be there quite some time.

Oi. I might climb indoors but I am crap at warming up and don't like Portland okay.

Still good post, same with yours Ru, all taken on board.

[SA Chris]

I think the nature of the rock often enables you to pay to your strengths too. On more "blanker" rock your options are often lessened as to how you can approach the moves, whereas on lime you may have the option of long moves between jugs, or shorter moves between crimps etc.

One of the oddities I struggle with on my occasional forays onto lime is that the handholds are often not that great to be used as footholds; things like good incut holds you can get your fingers into often won't allow a foot in. The rock is often paler in colour, which makes chalk harder to spot as well, and you often have small bulges to overcome on steeper routes.  All of these add up, so it can pay dividends to take extra care to memorise where anything that may be suitable as a foothold is while it is still at eye level.