Topic split: Ondra repeats Bon Voyage and grade debate

[monkoffunk]

Something like Cider Soak I’m much more interested to hear it in terms of three font grades stacked on top of each other than an English grade.

 

[Kingy]

English tech grades have not been used for sport climbs since around 1990 (when they appeared in the Yorkshire Limestone Rockfax i.e. Zoolook 8a or E7 6c). I don't think anyone is advocating a revival of that.

The use of English tech grades for British trad climbs is what is of interest to me at least. (E.g. The Big Issue E9 6c.) I personally couldn't give a monkeys about whether a European or US trad climb gets an E grade - I don't see the need for any kind of conversion TBH. BV can happily get 9aR in my book.

 

[abarro81]

7a tech grade means anything from your crux being a one move 7A (WSS does not even remotely have a 7B+ move on it) to your crux being a sustained 8B. I for one find it very informative to know that the crux section of the route I'm getting on is in the 7A-8B range, and anyone who says otherwise is simply talking down Great Britain.

 

[Duma]

Lol!!

 

[duncan]

"Breaking a pitch into individual moves and rating the pitch by the hardest move is nonsense."

Jim Bridwell (The Innocent, The Ignorant And The Insecure. Ascent 1973)

It is time to thank the UK tech. grade for decades of loyal service and send it off to retirement. It works well for move-rest-move-rest climbing but the activity has changed and it is now obsolete. As a guide to physical difficulty, a French grade is clearly more informative for routes above about E3/ UK6a and is different but just as useful on easier ones. Most people will benefit from changing over especially those making the transition from sport and indoors, who are the future of climbing.

As you probably know, the UK technical grade was originally the Fontainebleau bouldering grade, first used on southern sandstone then disseminated throughout the UK in the 1960s. Font 4 is about UK 4b, Font 5+ about 5c and so on. This worked well when most routes had a distinct technical crux, how hard this was more-or-less defined the overall physical difficulty of a pitch. It is much less helpful once you progress beyond move-rest-move-rest climbing. UK 5b can be anything from Fr 5 (Great Slab, Frogatt) to Fr 6b+ (Right Eliminate), a UK 6c anything from Fr 7b (Many retro-bolted E5s) to Fr 8a (Requiem, Dumbarton).

Every other grading system used for trad. routes - UIAA, French, US ‘Yosemite’, Australian - estimate cumulative physical difficulty for the whole pitch. There is nothing exceptional about UK trad. climbing that means we cannot do the same. No other grading system attempts to evaluate a single move (What is a single move? One hand movement? ‘A short passage of climbing’??). Even bouldering grades are a cumulative difficulty estimate. Yosemite grades originally estimated the hardest single move, like the UK tech. grade, but as routes got more sustained in the 1970s it evolved into a cumulative difficulty grade. In the early 80s some British climbers proposed a similar transition: Ron Fawcett originally graded Strawberries 7a to capture the sustained nature of the climbing despite it having no individual move harder than UK 6b. Unfortunately this did not catch on.

The main beneficiaries of such a change will be people transitioning from indoor or sport. If we are interested in encouraging a healthy proportion of climbers to place wires as well as clipping bolts (and, by implication, better resisting calls to bolt everything) we should minimise unnecessary barriers to trying trad. A familiar grade might help. Switching to French grades is in the long-term best interests of UK trad. climbing. Some CC/Wired guides are now including French grades for harder trad. routes. I see no reason why this shouldn't be extended to all. The group most likely to perceive a disadvantage are older VS to ~E3 climbers. They are sometimes resistant to change and often opinionated in their resistance! They will grumble but, as they nearly all sport climb too, they will manage perfectly well with French grades.

The main disadvantage of French over UK tech. grades is differentiating between sustained and bouldery routes, especially in middle grades: An E1 Fr 6a+ could be UK 5b or 5c. This is a valid point but one extra word in the description (“cruxy”, “sustained”), or a topo symbol would make this clear.

I'd keep the adjectival grade (Easy-E12) for trad. climbing as most people find it useful at onsightable grades. I think it works because it includes more than just a danger estimate (R,X) but also factors important for onsighting like obviousness of the sequence, difficulty placing gear, exposure, intimidation, and the cumulative effect of multiple pitches. Right Wall may be only Fr 6c and is not very badly protected but it is intimidating, hard to read, and the gear is not obvious. All this says E5 Fr6c, a more useful grade than 6c R which could also be applied to some E3s. I think it is more useful than the current E5 (UK)6a which is also given to routes like London Wall which much physically harder (7a+s in disguise).

There is also the ‘if it ain't broke’ argument. The UK tech. grade works well for Severe to ~E3 climbers - they designed it - and few embrace change when there is no perceived need. They may not feel this change helps them but they are not going to be significantly disadvantaged by it. Even if you don’t like this change, you’ll not be worse off and everyone else will be better off. Think of it as making a personal small sacrifice towards the healthy future of UK trad. climbing!

 

[spidermonkey09]

Well, I'm convinced. You should turn that into an article for ukc Duncan. *runs and hides from the comments section*

 

[petejh]

Duncan's is the correct answer and nothing more now needs to be said about the subject. All that remains is to implement the change and have all boomers - apart from Duncan! - put under house-arrest.

 

[Kingy]

Well, I respectfully disagree ;D

I agree with the utility of the french grade for trad routes and all of Duncan's sentiments. What I don't think works is the use of E grades on their own with just a French grade and no English tech grade. If we're gunna make such changes, we should bin not only the English tech grade but also the whole E grade system entirely.

I don't think the E grade on its own has any more utility than an R or X rating.

Good luck trying to convince UKC to bin off the tech grades in their news reports - they keep coming

(BTW, I am not a boomer :lol:

 

[Stu Littlefair]

The correct answer is clearly E grade with French grade for sustained routes and E grade with font grade for bouldery ones.

This would have the neat side effect of stopping people mixing up 6a and 6A so bloody often.

 

[SA Chris]

Was explaining the difference between 7A probs and 7a routes to some young guys who were struggling with the idea at the wall, can we change that too while we are at it?

 

[jwi]

[crux-grades] works well for move-rest-move-rest climbing but the activity has changed and it is now obsolete. As a guide to physical difficulty, a French grade is clearly more informative for routes above about E3/ UK6a and is different but just as useful on easier ones.

This was the point I was trying to make. If you look in old French topos, it is clear that many climbers of the 60s and 70s thought in crux-grades as topos are often denoted with a grade scribbled at the crux of the pitch. The same in topos from Scandinavia from before people could climb 7a and the modern sport of free climbing was invented.

Crux-grade and total difficulty of a pitch are highly related up to about Scand 6/6+ or French 6b. The harder the routes the more decoupled the difficulty of the hardest part and the grade is.

If you tell me that a route in France has a crux of Fb 5A I can tell you that the route is no easier than 5+ and no harder than 6a. If you tell med that the crux is Fb 5B I know it is 6a to 6b. If you tell me that a route has a crux of Fb 6A, I know that the route is somewhere between 6b+ and 7c+

 

[Muenchener]

I don't see the harm in adding a 7a tech grade to hard routes.

But what useful information is being conveyed by doing so? That the route has a crux sequence around Font 7B or harder - so somewhere in an approximately ten grade range? It's not clear to me who is supposed to find that helpful.

(I have never climbed harder than UK tech 6b and never will, so take my opinion for what it's worth)

 

[lukeyboy]

Was explaining the difference between 7A probs and 7a routes to some young guys who were struggling with the idea at the wall, can we change that too while we are at it?

It's straightforward, you just have to shout when saying "7A"

 

[spidermonkey09]

Was explaining the difference between 7A probs and 7a routes to some young guys who were struggling with the idea at the wall, can we change that too while we are at it?

They were struggling with the difference between a route and a boulder?

 

[Kingy]

I don't see the harm in adding a 7a tech grade to hard routes.

But what useful information is being conveyed by doing so? That the route has a crux sequence around Font 7B or harder - so somewhere in an approximately ten grade range? It's not clear to me who is supposed to find that helpful.

I think its quite helpful to know if a crux is Font 7B or harder. Anything of Font 7A+ and below would equate to 6c which would be onsightable for many leader operating at the E7 and above level. English 7b would be warranted for exceptionally difficult cruxes. E.g. Smoked Salmon E8 7b at Bamford, The Angel's Share E8 7b (original grades). These are rare beasts admittedly but do crop up on gritstone in particular for very bouldery sequences.

Anyway, the UK tech grade is carrying on in UKC databases and Rockfax going forwards I understand so its not as if we are adding it to routes, its there to stay! By all means add in French and Font grades as well, the more the merrier!

 

[spidermonkey09]

I don't see the harm in adding a 7a tech grade to hard routes.

But what useful information is being conveyed by doing so? That the route has a crux sequence around Font 7B or harder - so somewhere in an approximately ten grade range? It's not clear to me who is supposed to find that helpful.

I think its quite helpful to know if a crux is Font 7B or harder. Anything of Font 7A+ and below would equate to 6c which would be onsightable for many leader operating at the E7 and above level. English 7b would be warranted for exceptionally difficult cruxes. E.g. Smoked Salmon E8 7b at Bamford, The Angel's Share E8 7b (original grades). These are rare beasts admittedly but do crop up on gritstone in particular for very bouldery sequences.

Anyway, the UK tech grade is carrying on in UKC databases and Rockfax going forwards I understand so its not as if we are adding it to routes, its there to stay! By all means add in French and Font grades as well, the more the merrier!

I have absolutely no idea what a tech 7b grade is supposed to denote. How hard did they think smoked salmon was?! By Barrows method that would assume they thought the crux move was in the font 8B+ region?!

 

[SA Chris]

Was explaining the difference between 7A probs and 7a routes to some young guys who were struggling with the idea at the wall, can we change that too while we are at it?

They were struggling with the difference between a route and a boulder?

Yup. One said he could do 7a routes but not 7A graded boulders he was struggling with. Though the grading system was the same for both.

 

[Kingy]

I have absolutely no idea what a tech 7b grade is supposed to denote.

Nothing wrong with a bit of mystery!

 

[abarro81]

I have absolutely no idea what a tech 7b grade is supposed to denote. How hard did they think smoked salmon was?! By Barrows method that would assume they thought the crux move was in the font 8B+ region?!

Just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting an 8B move was "tech 7a", just that "tech 7a" could be anything from maybe one 7A move (=7A boulder) through to a dozen or so 7B moves in a row with hard transitions (= 8B?) and therefore isn't very useful, to say the least.

Anything of Font 7A+ and below would equate to 6c

Except you said WSS and Blind Date are 7a... neither of which have a 7B move on (or even close). It's almost as if the whole concept of the tech grade is a bit farcical since some use it to refer to the hardest move and others the hardest section (plus it's too wide to be useful).

But enough of this. Make Uselessly Wide Grades Great Again! Preferably in Latin - very British.

 

[Kingy]

[
Except you said WSS and Blind Date are 7a... neither of which have a 7B move on (or even close).

WSS is 7B+ to me at least. I find it desparate as do many people of average height. A lot of folk are calling it Font 7C. Its been E4 7a in the routes guidbook for many years.

Re Blind Date, an old Al Rouse route from the 80's originally done with a 'splits' stance off an old long- deparated boulder has been Font 7B+ ever since the Peak Bouldering 2005 guidebook and has been E4 7a in the routes guide for many years.

Again, for those of average height, I would say not many would dispute the 7B+ grade. FWIW, 21 votes on UKC for 7B+!