UKC

Off the back of ‘the road to Right Wall’ thread, would be interesting to hear people’s suggestions of sport grade equivalents for classic E5s.

This topic was covered here https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/gogarth_e56s_in_sport_grades-71...? but that was focused on Gogarth and to a lesser extent North Wales. 

A good question is what are we actually comparing. Sport grades are of course graded for the redpoint, whereas E5s are generally attempted (!) as onsights. There’s also the difficulty of putting in gear and carrying a large rack. I’d say the most sensible comparison would be the difficulty of the climbing on an E5 onsight (assuming you don’t muck it up and assuming the gear isn’t particularly hard to find and place) vs onsighting a mythical ‘average for the grade’ sport route (again, assuming you don’t muck it up). Where gear placement makes a route considerably harder, that’s worth noting separately.

I’ve only listed the ones I’ve done (not all onsight…), so interested in people’s views on these and other ones. Some were a while back and memory fades. For a bit of context, added a few E4s which fall within the E5 physical difficulty level.

Lakes (it’s all nails!)

Fast and Furious (original finish) 7a, Flying Groove finish meant to be 7a+ and looks it

Fear and Fascination 7a+

Peak

Flaky Wall E4 6c/+

Mortlock’s Arête E4 but P1 6c+/7a, P2 6c/+ should be E5?

Tales of Yankee Power 6c+/7a if you go the ‘right’ way

Midnight Summer Dream 7a

Supersonic 7a

Golden Mile 7b

Gogarth and Rhoscolyn

Magellan’s Wall 6c

Positron P3 6c, the rest E3

Camel (E5 in RF but I think it’s E4) 6c

Warpath 6c+ though I’d rather repeat this than Camel…

Dinosaur P1 6c/+, P2 E3

Ordinary Route P1 6c/+, P2 6c, P3 E3, P4 E3

The Cow P1 cruxy 6c+, P2 E3 

Citadel P1 cruxy 6c+, P2 6c (for the record, Graduation Ceremony P2 6c/+)

Energy Crisis 6c+/7a only seconded this but found it hard work

Run Fast Run Free 7a

Hunger P1 7a/+, P2 6c/+ I’d have to do it clean to get a better view 

Mammoth P1 7a/+, P2 E3 ditto

North Wales other areas

Central Sadness 6c

Right Wall 6c

Resurrection E4 6c/+

True Grip 6c/+

Poetry Pink 6c+ but slate slabs are hard to grade and the hard bits feel like a sport route really

Precious 6c+

Rimsky Korsakov 6c+

Great Wall (Craig y Forwyn) E4 6c/+ should be E5?

Space Mountain (Craig y Forwyn) 6c/+ 

Mother of Mercy (Craig ye Ysfa) 6c/+

Killerkranky 6c+/7a may be I just found it hard… twice

King Wad (never E6) 6c+/7a hard to grade with the hands free rest but no more than 7a

Afterburner (Gallt yr Ogof) 7a

Cockblock 7a+

Shropshire

Lockdown / Pica Pica (Llanymynech) 6c+ (just about in Shropshire I think)

Trouble in Toytown (Nesscliffe) 6c going out to the arête for a couple of moves, otherwise 6c+

Cones and Current (Nesscliffe) 6c+

The Nuance (Nesscliffe) 7a

Pembroke

Ships that Pass in the Night 6b+ but I could reach the hold

Minotaur 6c

Jabberwock 6c

Darkness at Noon 6c

Bloody Sunday E4 but 6c

Headhunter 6c, harder if you don’t get the crucial wire in quickly 

Blucher 6c+ only seconded so vague memory

Just Another Day / Scorch the Earth E4/5 6c/+

Tangerine Dream E4 6c/+

Circus Circus 6c+

Get Some In 6c+

Barbarella 7a/+ LH finish, assume harder for the direct

Just Klingon 7a+ would be E6 without the threads

South West

Darkinbad the Brightdayler P1 6c, P2 E3 but has the hardest move

Kafoozalem E3/4 6c thought I’d throw this in, some might disagree!

Wraith E4 6c/+ the other E4s are easier 

Pacemaker 6c+

Arms Race E4 6c/+/7a depending on how fit you are…

Grand Plage E4 6c/+ this summer but has been harder when the boulder was further away and before that was a lot easier if rumour is to be believed….

The West Face 6c+/7a but granite maestros will find this easier

Black Magic 7a

South Coast

Polaris P1 E1, P2 cruxy 6c/+, P3 E3

Wall of the Worlds 6c+

Lean Machine 7a

Forget the question, what an incredible ticklist! 

Grades are obviously subjective, but I'd say looking at that list you're probably being a bit generous with the sport grades (but I'll take the ego boost).

It is always interesting to convert these things. The real crux is obviously often hanging on to place the gear and placing the right gear.

Personally I would have given the first pitch of Darkinbad 6c+ not 6c. I was on top rope but still found it hard and terrifying. 

Warpath I would say 6c rather than 6c+. Having so little gear on the top section probably makes it easier to grade. 

I notice you have listed nothing on grit. You must have a massive tick list on the grit yet to do. I assume all grit e5s are at least 8a. 

I’m no longer that bothered but I’ll just say that is a highly questionable assertion that has been hotly debated on UKC in the past.

To add another Avon route into the mix, Lost Illusions (E5 6b) is generally considered 7b. That appears to make it the hardest there! but it also should perhaps be soft E6?

I'm surprised that anyone can give a sport grade for trad route with any degree of certainty at all unless they have top roped it; there are just too many other factors that make it feel harder. I certainly wouldn't try to do so.

Let’s not forget these routes tend to have mega pumpy sections where you arrive fresh, fiddle in the wrong size wire, block the placement and then can’t get the damn thing out again, finally trundling upward pumped silly on one arm.

Good list. I find myself agreeing with most of those which I have done (which is a fair number) and I have a bit of a reputation as a stern grader.

A few more random additions into the mix from Peak and Tremadog:

London Wall - 7a+

White Wall - 7a+

Edge Lane - 6a+

Green Death - 6a+ (f6C start)

Behemoth - 7a+

Sexual Salami - 6c+

Vulcan - 7a (maybe just me but this felt hard for E4)

Alan

Most of the old E5's that have been retrobolted in Yorkshire and Cumbria that I can think of seem to have settled in line with most of this list, at 7a ish.

I'm with Robert on this one, factoring in (or not) finding/placing gear makes comparisons a bit meaningless/very subjective. 

I suppose the question is how much does the gear aspect add? I would say a full sport grade.

Few opinions on some I've done:

Kephalonia (E5 6a) 1st and 2nd pitch both 7a?

Mean Feat (E5 6a) 6c/+?

Red Rag to a Bull (E5 6b) 7a+?

Graham Hoey's guide for the peak gives sport grades and or font grades for many of the harder routes above E5:

A selection of reasonable popular E5s in the book: 

On the Air - E5 6a/F6c 

Desolation Angel - E5 6a/F6c 

The Tempest - E5 6a/F6c

New Mediterranean - E5 6b/F7a+/b

Moolah - E5 6b/F7a/+

Goosey Goosey Gander - E5 6a/F6c+

Bat out of Hell E5 6a/F7a

Edge lane E5 5c/F6b+

London Wall E5 6b/F7a+

Jermyn Street - E5 6a/F6c

Pool Wall - E5 6b/F7a+

Strapadictomy - E5 6b/F7a

Heartless Hare E5 6a/F6a+

Hairless Heart - E5 6a/F6b+

Moon Crack - E5 6b/F7a

Profit of Doom E5 6b/F7a

Ridgit Digit - E5 6b/F7a+

Perfect day E5 6b/F7a+

Hardly done any myself to comment on accuracy

That's what Euro-climbers do every time! Not many Euros understand (or dare I say 'care about') UK trad grades.

A couple more from the south west:

Low Profile 7a

Yer Yella 6c

Arms Race jumped out as being a strange inclusion to your list, fairly soft at E4 and no more than 6b+ IMO

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/dumbarton_rock-189/chemin_de_fer-3...

F7a+

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/pabbay-3512/in_profundum_lacu-1018...

F7a or F7a+ - ebbs and flows between technical cruxes and sustained pumpiness!

Need to get back to work, will trawl my logbook and see what my memory says!

Poetry Pink- 6c? Long time ago now...

I agree it's tricky, but not impossible. I think folk should be clear what they are comparing though, overall onsight comparison, or ease of top-roping:

(a) What sport grade onsight was of similar overall difficulty for onsighting a trad route? This only really applies to reasonably well protected trad routes. So for me, I always benchmarked a pumpy trad E4 with F6c+

(b) How hard is the trad route to onsight on top-rope, as a sport grade? Focussing just on physical difficulty. Useful for very bold trad routes, where you arn't going to waste energy placing gear. Big sustained run-outs and more pumpy and fiddly gear will make the top-rope sport grade seem very mean.

(c) like (b) but as a top-rope 'redpoint' -- not terribly useful for on-sight climbing other than a vague indicator.

I imagine lots of people have done loads more but it’s a bit of a job to note it all down. I thought about pruning it a bit but most are fairly well known and so helpful reference points - particularly as most guide books start to give sport grades only from E6. 

It comes down to what the climbing should be vs what it feels like and that bias is hard to eliminate entirely. I wouldn’t argue with pegging the ones where I included a “/“ to the lower grades. Some people might peg most of the list down by half a grade. It’s all a bit approximate but if it was a precise science there would be nothing to debate

Fair point, some consider that sport is grades for onsight up to about 7a / 7a+ but that might just be a reflection of most ascents up to that level being (attempted) insights. In any case, I think the comparison can only be sensible if it’s like for like, i.e. how an average 7a etc feels to onsight, regardless of how it was meant to be graded. Of course the other question is what’s an average 7a etc. Hopefully most people would agree that this mythical beast is more likely to lurk somewhere like Portland than at the Cornice.

I'd agree on Low Profile but Arms Race is definitely harder than that. I've done it 4 times and even knowing it really well it's too pumpy for 6b+. 6c and mid grade E4 surely?

Not done any grit E5s (tried a few). Always going to be hard to convert apart from longer routes e.g. at Millstone. A Cornice grade may be considered a sensible comparison for the shorter grit routes.

I see your point but TR won’t be a fair comparison either, unless you also TR a bunch of sport up to 7a+. In other words, TR trad vs onsight or even RP sport isn’t the same. It would be another reference point though. I do think you can get a sense of the sport grade from (attempted) onsight trad. It won’t be precise but grades never are and you might need to adjust for badly messing up sequences, getting pumped due to being scared, hard to place gear, etc - but you should be able to get an idea.

Bat Out Of Hell would suit you I reckon. More 'sporty' than 'bouldery'.

Not necessarily - if the gear is not fiddly or hard to spot and can be placed from a reasonable position, I don’t think it necessarily adds much, certainly not a full sport grade. If it’s hard work, I’d factor it out. That said, trad does require a higher level of fitness / stamina to be able to hang around placing gear or getting psyched. I may be biased as I tend to be able to hang around but I tend to adopt that approach on sport onsights as well, so it’s still kind of comparable. I’m also assuming not overgearing a route such as unnecessarily stopping mid crux to lace it. 

Tried Bat - one to come back for. 7a/+ perhaps but would need to do it to really know. 

I'd say moon crack felt about as hard as 7a, and cones and current felt about as hard as 6c. Then I'm out of E5s, unless you count blood bank (I did it before the ukc downgrade), which I thought felt about hard as 6c. It would be easy to overthink it but I think it's reasonable to say a route made you try as hard as a given sport grade.

I'd tend to agree. I'm more surprised that folk can remember the routes enough to be able to confidently estimate a sport grade for them. Unless they consciously considered it at the time.

And also working out where a trad route actually goes as if unchalked, (Right Wall), it can be a nightmare just holding on while you work it out, too say nothing about some really tricky gear placement/clips when you can't let go! But as others have said, an interesting exercise for a wet February day.

That’s would only be surprising if you assume that everyone is onsighting these routes with loads to spare.  Do you thing that you can’t offer a comment on the accuracy of a sport route if you on sight it.  I reckon I can have a good guess at the sport grade for most of the E4/E5s I’ve tried.  It’s probably a more accurate guess if I’ve had more than one go.  Personally I find it useful information to know even if the trad experience is more than just physical difficulty.  
 

I’ve done a few of Misha’s list and I agree with a lot of it - other than there’s no way arms race is 7a, and I can’t believe get some in is only 6c.

A sport route feels like a sport route, so estimating the grade is easy. A trad route doesn't; I'd probably have to consciously consider it at the time to have an idea.

And what sport grade would Right Wall get on a wet February day?  

And interesting to give the opposite as then it's definitive. Half Pipe Dream (6c) was debolted and became an E5. I watched the first repeat on gear and having done the 6c version, I think it's scary.

The top comment in the feed back is telling, though. It's gone from a trad route to a sport route... to a toprope route...

Rob's a partner and I agree with the comment. I threw it in as a reverse argument. There must be a few other similar scenarios.

Sometimes the sport grade is noted in the logbook or at least whether it’s easy / average / hard for E5 which can be converted to a sport grade with a bit of adjustment as required. But yeah sometimes memory fades.

I think the easiest way to give a trad route a sport grade with any degree of consistency/comparability is to grade the trad route as if it is fully bolted (and for an onsight). That's the way I graded the E5s and above in my guide.

My 6c to 7a range for Arms Race was tongue in cheek, guess it’s 6c/+ if warmed up and not tired. I’ve done it 6 times and of those only once clean. To be fair, first time was too hard for me, second time fine and after that was tired every time I tried it.

I’ve led and seconded Get Some In with different partners and all 3 of us agreed it was about 6c+. I think Tangerine Dream is not much easier. 

Isn't Bitterfingers supposed to be 7a/7a+ at E4? Grades are weird. 

I found Arms Race easier than Mirage and about the same as Them (both E3 and both done on the same day as Arms Race). 

In the context of converting to sport grades it seems logical that the placing of gear on pumpy sustained routes takes more of an additional toll than on cruxy routes where you can climb the hard parts at a similar pace to a sport route. So the conversion could be harder to evaluate objectively on the pumpfests and likely be biased a bit upwards

I reckon we should bolt them so we can work it out for certain

Isn't that what everyone is assuming, pretty much by definition? 

Far fairer than having led it; top roping will give a very accurate feel for the physical difficulty of a route which is precisely what the sport grade is supposed to measure. In fact, it could be argued that too roping a sport route would give a better feel for the sport grade than leading it since most people are affected by the thought of lead falls on sport routes (even if, ideally, they shouldn't be!).

I recall Bitterfingers being tough and my log says hard E4 but with a good rest and some not so good ones. At a guess, 6c+ as a hard E4.

I think you’re overthinking it by trying to get to a perfect measure. Grades are approximate in any case and each grade will have a range. You can get a sense of the sport grade by leading a trad route. May be take off half a grade to account for the gear faff. As others have said, the Eurowads don’t seem to have any issues giving our routes sport grades.

No  because some have been including the difficulty, strain and stress of finding, identifying and correctly placing gear in trying to assign a grade. 

Graham

The trouble is, for those routes where the above makes a significant difference to the physical difficulty (quite a lot of trad routes), either the sport grade is going to be lower than it actually feels on onsight lead, or higher than the actual physical act of climbing.

Really? That seems bizarre and just plain incorrect to me. When I have seen sport grades being given for UK trad routes, I have never imagined it was anything other than, by definition, a measure of the the overall physical difficulty of the actual climbing? If some people are including other factors then obviously there will never be agreement.

But how accurate are they? When climbing abroad where French grades are given for trad, I don't really think of them as a sport grade, but rather something more like the YDS (after all, you often get different bits of the same pitch given separate grades). It is almost as if the same set of grades is being used for two separate systems of actual grading. After a bit, you get used to, say, 6a+ with reasonable protection probably being about E2, but thinking of it as a sport grade is really not very helpful (obviously the euros don't think of it as E2 but I wonder whether they have a sort of internalised feel for 6a+ trad rather than thinking of it as a sport grade). But maybe it is different for the highest grades.

I have always assumed that the YDS is, in this way, effectively really two separate grading systems using the same set of numbers. One a direct translation from French grades for sport and the other the original, slightly vague "hardest bit between rests" thing (or whatever the last American you spoke to told you they think it means....... ).

I've suggested before that UKC expands the options for grade voting on all routes in the database to add an indicative vote on the UK adjective grade to all trad routes worldwide.

I'd extend this to add French grade votes to all UK trad routes as well (or those over E4).

It would be great to see opinions on the E grade of foreign trad routes and the climbing difficulty of UK trad.

I don't know anyone who I climb with who jumps on anything graded between 6a and 7a who thinks the grade is for a redpoint. 
 

E

Totally agree with that. I’m constantly amazed at how high people assign E5 with a sport grade. The technicality is always fixed, but it’s other factors such as lack of pro. danger potential, ability to read a route and people’s self control that is variable. Like you I’ve done a good number of the original list, in my case mainly before sport climbing was invented, when leading skills were paramount as opposed to physicality, as it was the only game in town. As an example off the list, Golden Mile is quoted as 7B. Way back in bendy EBs, Rab and myself did the second ascent and neither of us could onsight anything like 7B, but neither of us fell. It’s E3 to the very well protected crux, but then above the ledge scary UK 5C and odd 6A every move with scarce RP protection, probably F6C+/7A. This I feel clouds people’s judgement, as they get scared and the perception is of desperate technicality. In my opinion by far the hardest move on any Chee Tor E5 is the crux for one move by a drilled peg on The Myrmidon at genuine 7B, which at the time I fell off several times. Grades harder than anything on GM and nearly on a par with the crux of Sardine and how many times did that used to get “flashed”

This would, on my opinion, soon become pretty much the most useful thing on UKC. More useful than grades for British routes which we already have in the guidebook. British climbers abroad are always trying to find out from other British climbers what the UK adjectival grades of routes are, so formalising it on here would make total sense.

There is clearly a demand for this in the upper grades, so it seems like another no-brainer to me.

I'd agree that Golden Mile is never 7b. I've found I have a better opinion on things I've seconded and I remember flashing Golden Mile on second during a period I was not flashing 7b.

It’s all very well to assign a putative sport grade to a trad route, but what sport grade would you give when carrying a rack and double ropes weighing >5kg? That’s going to feel very different.

I think we all accept that the same grade feels different to different people. We don't give routes extra grades for overweight people?

We don't get to take a bigger E grade because we took a heavy double rack. We don't get extra E points for bad sequences.

Of course leading a french 7a+ whilst carrying a double rack and hanging on for an hour to fiddle in dodgy gear placements feels harder than top roping the same route. It does not make the climbing harder though.

If your point is that people are poor at grading on lead I'd agree.

If you think trad routes should get an inflated French grade to account for extra weight and faff I strongly disagree.

That’s not what I meant. Obviously, the sport grade aspires to be as objective as consensus can make it. 
 

I’ve read posts on various threads about how trad route x is sport grade y but there’s an obvious temptation to make a false equivalence. No one redpoints with a full Gogarth rack on their harness, that’s a radically different proposition.

And no one redpoints while dealing with pumpy to place Gogarth protection and dangerous run outs on dubious rock either.

Is it really so radical? Putting aside that you've chosen an extreme example, is the weight of a trad rack really likely to make much of a difference to the physical difficulty of a route? I'd be surprised if it ever would make more than a + grade difference and very often the grade would be the same.

Similarly, I think there's a tendency to overstate the physical difference that having to place gear makes. Like the difference between placing quickdraws or not on a sport route, the difference can be critical but rarely will be large. With a trad route the difference will more pronounced, but the majority of any difference in practice will be due to dithering or choosing the wrong size gear rather than being required for an efficient ascent. The fact that we (myself included!) routinely overprotect trad routes and therefore make them physically harder for ourselves, doesn't mean that the sport grades of the routes themselves are as hard as we make them!

I think in general, the sport grade given would simply equate to the difficulty of top-roping a route clean, but in cases where placing the gear adds notably to the effort, an extra plus grade might be justified. Very rarely more.

Really? I am virtually certain that all the sport routes I have onsighted near my limit and the few I have redpointed near my limit would have been way beyond me if I had had to stop and place even easy to place protection to make them safe to my satisfaction.

+1

I doubt I could have done many of them just carrying the extra few kilos of rack, let along stopping to place any of it. 

Of course, this and only this.

I wouldn’t add any grades. Sport routes are graded for the physical difficulty of the moves with other considerations stripped out, we both know that. My point was simply an observation that giving a theoretical sport grade makes it very easy to underestimate how physically hard big trad routes are going to be in practice. Nothing more.

would be an entirely different but potentially interesting thread to discuss what sport grade do you need to be onsighting to climb which E5s. 

Interesting question, but tricky that, because you're essentially asking what extra margin is required to succeed beyond the raw sport grade.  That will depend on the individual's trad skill set. Some weaker climbers are brilliant at the craft of climbing trad and staying cool at their limit, some would need a bigger margin to cope. It won't have a simple answer.

"but I wonder whether they have a sort of internalised feel for 6a+ trad rather than thinking of it as a sport grade"

Thats certainly true. 

of course personally I'd be much happier trying hard on something with plenty of gear rather than running it out these days where as in the past I'd have found it much easier to be on something run out and scary, well for the given trad grade anyhow. its a complicated thing and I've not got anywhere near E5 so won't be offering personal opinions on grading them. 

Yeah, that sounds about right! The same principles apply across grades though, whether you're aspiring to E2 or E8.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I suspect that such rationalisations are often after-the-fact explanations that sound entirely plausible. I think what happens in practice is that people simply think "route A feels harder than route B to me, so I think it should get at least the same grade or higher", or perhaps, "climber A can do that route and can't usually do grade X, so its grade can't be as high as X". The nature of the route in question may not be foremost in the mind of those giving grades.

Yep. I mean, who redpoints placing the quickdraws on lead? If having to place those can make the difference between success and failure, then sticking in cams is going to make an even bigger difference.

In a way, that could be an easier answer. Given that the less physical routes of the same E grade will be the bolder ones (and therefore, most will want tech/sport grades in hand), you'd think there'd be a general rule for many routes of each E grade. Obviously the super bold might occasionally climb with less margin for error and earn an E grade beyond their usual capability.

E.g.

E3 - 6c

E4 - 6c+

E5 - 7a/7a+ ?

Depends how hard you try on sport. If your best onsight is 6c in a "50% success ratio, slapping at everything, fingers uncurling, nothing left in the tank when you get to the chains" way then that's very different from some people's best sport onsight where it leaves them a bit out of breath and they had to try a bit.

I found a better correlation with what I could do on trad and the hardest thing I'd want to comfortably do as a warmup, or the grade I'd pick as second route of the day. But I'm not a naturally good trad climber.

What a confusing thread. I'd equate 7a with E2 or perhaps hard E2 in terms of overall difficulty.  Based on the fact that I've on sighted a few 7as and never climbed harder than E2.

( apart from Acme Wall pre pads and some project that ended up getting retrobolted at Ardvorlich)

?!

Nah, 7a ~ E4 is definitely the established consensus. And I'd agree with that.

Yes the given sport grade will be less than it feels on the trad onsight but people will know to expect this. It’s not like people looking to climb E5 say, oh it’s given only 6c and I can easily onsight 6c so this will be a path. It is however an indication of how difficult the climbing is and hence a useful bit of information alongside the trad grade. In fact, E5 F6c will tell me a lot more than E5 6a. There was a good debate around this topic in David Coley’s thread last year on whether trad tech grades are broken. 

Potentially no margin needed if the trad route is fairly easy to read and quite sporty, with hard sections between good and easy to place gear. Of course you might not succeed but you’d have a decent chance. If the gear is a faff and / or the route is hard to read, I guess most people would need a full grade in hand, may be more. Bold routes are a separate question. 

We aren’t talking about overall difficulty though, just a rough idea of how hard the climbing is. Even if we were, E2 is never 7a. May be 6c for overall difficulty of a solid E2 eg Silver Shadow and even that’s pushing it. May be you’re just a lot better at sport than trad. 

I suspect most people are these days. Easy to keep one's sport standard up all year round by climbing indoors, but each year the need to rebuild one's trad after the winter

Once saw Caff doing a talk where he said something like - trad is easy really, you just hang around until the holds give out. The power of indoor fitness is not to be underestimated but yeah, always takes a while to get back into the trad groove. 

Literally the reason why most routes are MUCH easier for the light - particularly higher grades.

E5 is somewhere around 6b+ to 7b+ for 70kg whippets. As soon as you go north of about 80kg you can add a couple of grades.

That's pretty much spot on for me (caveat I have never climbed E5, but reckon I have a <50% of onsighting 7a normally) 

A good point. I'll try to onsight/flash sport routes with close to zero chance of success. By comparison, I'll mostly try to onsight/flash trad when I have very good chance of success. For various reasons.

Not sure how that compares to the average climber.

Some of the Horseshoe Main Wall routes feel E5

Originally, with sparse bolting, some were given E4. And that's kind of what they felt like. Nowadays I'm guessing they must be properly bolted but horribly polished. 

Mick 

Bolts new, but mostly in same places. Extra one or two to prevent every 80's/90's sport climber's favourite thing - decking out clipping high second bolts.

it’s quite a thing to see just what a stunning set of routes John Allen gave us. With routes like Moolah, the 6b in the trad grade gives more of a clue than the French grade. Might be just me, but a really hard move.

I disagree.

Have you ever tried Easy Picking (E2 6b) at Rivelin Edge? I think it is actually harder than 7a.

Not convinced. The heavier you are, the lower the % extra weight that 5kg will represent. Anyway, you don’t get an extra grade for being  heavy or whatever. It will just feel harder. The grade is the grade.

An E5 weighing in at 7b+ is quite a sandbag!

No but a random route which is probably a sandbag doesn’t prove anything. 

It's literally there in the comment i quoted. I guarantee you apply the principle of removing unnecessary weight/a lighter rack when climbing harder grades.

It's hard to see why anyone would argue that absolute weight makes pulling on small holds harder especially in a sport and at grades where so much is placed on the smallest bits of your body - fingers! Additional weight is unlikely to contribute much to this area of the body. Your comment "the lower the % extra weight that 5kg will represent" misses this.

Go buy something like a Y&Y Penta and a lifting pin. Choose the smallest edge and find your 2RM lift using a half crimp - i bet it's less than 85kg. Now add weight to make it 85kg. Harder isnt it?

With your fingertips torqued in to the crack of London Wall every 'extra' kilo is making your fingers scream in pain (but yes, it's still 'only' E5).

Easy Picking is just the wrong grade. It's blatantly E3.

Not a classic route but pretty good, what would folk rate Kink at Stoney please? I hadn't done a bolted route at that time, this is a very long time ago, and later thought it would be 7b surely. Maybe it was just a high gravity day.

Compare Easy Picking with Auto da Fe and ask yourself which is harder.

If someone can't climb harder than E3, it's unlikely they'll get up Easy Picking.

Would suggest the correct grade is E4 6b. It it were a sport route, it would be around F7a.

Mick 

I think i cruised Easy Pickings in the same season I was humbled by London Wall....

I'd not argue with 7a+ but think it's too short lived to be 7b.

Definitely a harder single move than anything on the neighboring E5s.

I really think E3 6b is fair. f7a climbing with the gear literally in your face. Yes it's a pig, but it's unlikely to hurt. In a world where we can have E1 7a's which would require a ladder from most E5 leaders I think its fair. 😅

(Sounds daft, but I love the fact that the grading system doesn't really work, especially once you get to the bigger numbers. Keeps everyone on there toes, and no matter what you climb, you're never quite sure whether you'll scrape over the top) 😅

I once put a FA in the Stoney new routes book with E1 6b (think it's a highball boulder problem now?) 

Promptly got the waggish comment, 'No such grade'. And they were right. So E1, 7a???

[To Shani]  Surely Easy Picking and London Wall belong in different categories (never mind the gradings)?

Mick 

i apply Joe Brown's grading: Routes I can do. Routes I can't.

Fair enough!

Sport climbs are graded for the easiest sequence, and if the sequence is hard to read, convoluted or blind that means it is being graded for the redpoint

Climbing a 6a with bad beta does not make the route a 7a

More weight makes it harder if the route is steep and you don’t have more muscle strength in the arms and more reach to compensate. RW is only vertical so it shouldn’t be as much of a consideration. Something like Just Klingon is steep but the holds are mostly juggy, so weight will definitely be an issue but it depends on how much extra strength that weight gives you.

In any case, the extra 5kg will be a relatively lower % if extra weight if you are 85kg compared to say 60kg. When you do a strength assessment on a fingerboard, it’s the % of body weight rather than the absolute weight added which is considered to compare you with the wider climbing population.

I don’t entirely disagree but I think saying that an E5 or any other grade feels harder if you are heavier is too much of a generalisation. Strength, height and finger size all play a part, even assuming the same level of fitness, technique and head game. 

Any more suggestions? Particularly Lakes and Scottish classics. Asking for a friend.

I see where you're coming and don't disagree that in climbing other factors like height & finger size come in to play in general, but as holds get smaller (particularly on harder climbs), weight becomes more of an issue - and the effect of this can replicated with the Y&Y Penta and a lifting pin test I posted above where you'll find that lifting your weight (<84kg?) on the 15mm edge is easier than lifting my weight (84kg) and our weight difference will be barely explained by the tissue, bone and tendon necessary to make that lift.

I can only just about lift my 68kg on a 15mm edge, so certainly no chance at 84kg which would be +16kg / +23%. I can’t do that even on 20mm. That said, strength hasn’t been the main limiting factor on E5s I’ve not managed to do clean, it’s all the other stuff… But we digress. 

You'll need to explain. I might be being dumb here but after 40 years climbing I've still no idea what this means.

E

Well, imagine a route that have a hidden jug. If you know it is there and latch for it the move is piss and the route overall is 6a. If you can't see it and don't use it, the sequence to overcome that section is 7a.

What grade is the route? 6a or 7a?

Assuming an equal likelihood of spotting as not spotting it, then clearly grade =

{(6a x 50/50) + (7a x 50/50)} / 2 = 6b+ 

Funny you should say that. I've done a new route at a crag and it's 6b. There's a good hold a full arm's reach out to the right on the crux. If you don't know about it and climb direct it's at least 6c.

My mate climbed it without the hold, came down and said that "F**k me Ent, that's hard for 6b".
Well it's not my fault he missed the hold.

The route is still graded 6b and the grade is for the onsight.

E

Surely you mean it is graded for the redpoint; if 99% of 6b (but not 6c) climbers fail to find the jug on the onsight and so fail to onsight the route, then it is harder than 6b for the onsight, by definition.

Edit: A less contrived example would be a route with a hard to read sequence which needs to be read in a very pumpy position but is only 6b climbing using the sequence. If the climbing is 7a by an obvious but much harder sequence (perhaps a powerful dyno past the apparently blank bit) but 6b climbers will almost all get pumped out and fall off before finding the easier sequence, then most 6b climbers will fail to onsight the route, so it's harder than 6b for the onsight.

Perhaps it should be graded for the beta flash

Craig, the grade's for the onsight where you hit everything perfectly! And, by your own admission, that's not likely to happen. 

Re your text above, you didn't write 'if you don't find it', you wrote 'if you don't know about it'. Now apologies if I'm being picky about text, but it sounds as though this hold is not easily found. For instance you haven't even suggested that people who climb harder will find it, you've said that they'll 'climb direct'. 

Given where you live and climb, if you think direct is 'at least 6c', we've got two grades:

6c+ (maybe harder) onsight. 

6b redpoint (or appropriate beta)

Mick (To be Cartesian, as they say down your neck o' the woods: "Cogito ergo sum, err... cogito.") 

It’s strange to read the debate here, because the idea that sport routes should be graded by second guessing the abilities of a future ascentionist to read a sequence is nonsensical. The grade should reflect the most efficient way of moving over that bit of rock. The approach is a matter of personal preference.

It is meaningful to give grades to different sequences, such as  “it’s grade X with a given hold but grade Y if you miss it” but claiming that the route itself is a 7a for an onsight climber and a different grade for another is daft and not what sport grades are designed to do. You are grading the route, not the climber. The best you can say is it’s extremely hard to onsight. A lot of sport routes are.

Hi Misha,

A few more for your friend from up north:

Trilogy (E5 6a) F6c+

Fine Time (E5 6b) F7a

The Cumbrian (E5 6b) F7a

Penal Servitude (E5 6b) F7a+

Left Wall (E5 6a) F7a

Doubting Thomas (E5 6b) F7a+

The Flying Fissure Finish (E5 6b) F7a+

All to be taken with a pinch of salt obviously

cheers,

George.

If it's been graded for the redpoint.

So where does this common understanding that, up to a certain level, routes are graded for the onsight come from? Are you saying it is a myth?

Grading for the onsight is not grading the climber any more than grading for the redpoint is; grading for the climber would mean giving the route different grades for different climbers, whether onsight or redpoint.

Not a myth, no. Rather, a sociological outcome.

If enough people question the grade given, whether upwards or downwards, then it may end up being changed. After all, grades should reflect how hard climbers think routes are (with obvious caveats about grade creep).

And if almost everyone's experience of a route is from trying/doing it onsight and not finding the hidden beta, the grade may end up being widely questioned, and ultimately potentially revised.

A lot of people get very hung up about the finer nuances of grading, as though it's an exact science or even should be, but ultimately a grade boils down to what people think it should be, compared to other routes they've done.

i have soloed it twice; take your time and stay calm  

Thanks, I’ll add half a grade along with the salt

Minotaur is probably the easiest of the Leap E5s, if you’ve got a decent reach. Seem to recall it’s about E3 to the crux but my second pulled off a hold low down and fell off… 

It is probably not so much a case of grading for the onsight specifically, more that the routes tend to be graded by climbers climbing them onsight. So the FA says to their mates, "climb this and tell me the grade", they onsight it and say it's e.g. 6c and that's what the route becomes. Over time, others may disagree and it could become something else.

Agree. That's what I use. 

By the sound of Enty's example, it's not whether people find the jug or not. It sounds as though they won't find it! So one sequence with it, the other without. 

Imagine two boulder problems, v2 with a jug, v3 without. Or whatever the corresponding v grades would be (am not a boulderer).

Agree. Lots on Portland, for instance, the home of the hidden crimp you find, far too late (or when lowering off).

Mick

Interesting discussion. I agree with some of those French grades but not all (both easier and harder). I think it just confirms to me how variable and subjective grading is. I think anchoring bias also plays a large role - often anchored to the grade given by the first ascensionist. I think you often see evidence of this on UKC grade voting after a route has been regraded - votes tend to coalesce around the previous grade (rather than the new grade) which was presumably the 'official' grade when most of the votes were made. 

I've often wondered if you could run some sort of blind experiment to iron all of this out. Fly in a load of foreign climbers of varying ability with no knowledge of the routes and ask them to rank the routes in order of difficulty. This may sort out various anomalies like many of the Stoney E4s like butterfingers and millionaire touch having a lower grade than many of the Pembroke E5s like the minotaur and head hunter when they are harder in my opinion.

Definitely. A lot of the time, folk seem to just go with the given grade. I'm sure if one went back in time and altered the grade for quite a few routes, that's the grade everyone would think they were!

So if you fall off and try it a second time the grade is for the redpoint. If you onsight it first go the grade is for the onsight?

I still don't get it. I fall off routes all the time where I've missed a good hold thinking that was fecking hard for 6b, 6c, 7a, which dick graded that etc etc. Then when you find the hold it's easy - isn't that the beauty of onsighting?

A good example would be:https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/saint_leger-3067/a_chacun_son_l...

It's 6a. I don't know anyone who has onsighted it and that includes some decent 6c/7a climbers. I fell off it first go, came away from the crag, cursing, ego dented after falling off a 6a and thinking at least 6b+, then a few weeks ago tried it again and there's a big glaring side-pull right on the crux which everyone misses, no idea how, which makes it 6a after all.

E

So the grade assumes you find the jug. That means it is effectively for the redpoint. Which is how sport routes are (or should be) graded. If you’re lucky, you might find the jug and onsight it at 6a. It’s just that at 6a the moves and sequences tend to be fairly onsightable, so people don’t tend to distinguish the difficulty between onsight and redpoint.