UKC

I had a go at this on the weekend, and turns out it's quite good fun! Normally I climb trad - confident on VS, and I've got up the HVSs that I've tried (always on days when feeling very positive). I normally climb with people less confident than me, so rarely climb harder grades than I lead.

However, sport seems to be very difficult - I led a 5+ clean, but was very pumped; then top-roped a 6a (onsight, if that's a thing on TR), but was too knackered after that to lead it...or climb anything else. Is this poor endurance, and if so any tips on training for this? Also why don't they chip some rest ledges before the hard bits? I'm now quite scared of E1...

In reply to humptydumpty:

Looks like your sport and trad grades are pretty consistent as far as I can see ?

The trick (as well as getting fitter) is to spot the rests the route does provide (changes in feet position, bridging, relaxing grip etc) which you will gradually learn with more leading experience. Time on the rock is all that's needed.

In reply to GrahamD:

Shame! I was hoping the reduced fear of climbing on bolts would mean I was instantly amazing. Thanks for the tips though - will definitely be doing a bit more sport when I get the chance. Also to me 6a seems like the first proper grade for sport climbing, so I was secretly hoping it would be easy.

In reply to humptydumpty:

me too, in my head sport climbing was going to be a clip up! It gets better and has helped my trad head now too, do it a bit more and you'll feel more comfortable I'm sure.

In reply to humptydumpty:

Yes, it can be a bit fun occasionally, and I now have experience of it helping improve trad leading too. A lot of it is psychological.

"I can move upward while pumped"
"I can fall off on real rock"
"I can do that move because I did something harder on a sport climb"

All things that I have thought to myself since getting into sport this summer.

And there's the increased fitness too

In reply to humptydumpty:


I think this is an expectation set by 'generous' climbing wall grades rather than reality. Real f6a climbs (as found in France, for instance) will feel technically way harder than anything encountered on a VS. Stick with it.

In reply to humptydumpty:

My sports grade tends to, more or less, match my trad grade as laid out in the comparison tables. For example my current limit on sport is 6b+ and on trad E3,5c. I don't think that this is unusual for those who started on trad but making the transition in the other direction seems more difficult. The thing is though that I find the sport climbing much more physically intense and demanding especially indoors and especially on the upper body and fingers. I also climb much better outdoors because it affords me the opportunities to make better use of my feet. I probably push it a little more on sport but after almost 50 years climbing I can't rid myself of "the leader does not fall" mentality.

In reply to GridNorth:

Are we twins that were separated at birth?


Chris

In reply to humptydumpty:

Congrats and I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's perfectly normal to feel knackered when sport climbing - the lack of requirement to faff around with gear means that you tend to cover a lot more ground in less time than you do with trad. Sport 6a is technically much harder than the VSs and HVSs you are used to, so don't despair. The best way to train the endurance at your grade is just to climb, climb, climb. Just try to climb as many routes as you can, climb til your hands are uncurling from the holds.

Another fun thing to do with sport climbing is to try something that you know is too hard for you to onsight (say a 6b), with the goal of just getting to the top. This gives you an experience of climbing more difficult moves, in relative safety. Take an old snapgate with you so if you really can't do the moves in any way at all, you can lower off that and leave it behind.

And for the full sport climbing experience, once you've learned the moves and found all the hidden holds, you can pull the ropes and lead it in one go - this is redpointing.

>so rarely climb harder grades than I lead

This is one of the reasons I got into sport climbing: I had led a decent number of E1s and seconded very few E2s - so I had no idea whether I could get up E2. Getting on the lead seemed a bad way to find out! Getting on the sport equivalent (6b+ or so) was a good stepping stone.

I've since discovered I enjoy sport-climbing for itself

If you get solid on F6a then E1 will not be far away if you've got the other trad skills wired.

In reply to Siderunner:

6b+ (for me) is nowhere near equivalent to E2 - its way harder (as in I can't do it).

In reply to GrahamD:

I agree that trad/sport grade comparisons are usually meaningless but it does seem to work for me most of the time. I tend to give trad grades to sports climbs to get my head round them by assuming a sport climb is just an extremely well protected trad route so the E becomes an E just for effort and does not take into account other factors.

I've never fully understood why we took on board a system invented by the French. We are not usually so accommodating and there is a little bit of me that thinks the French thought the same at the time.

In reply to GridNorth:

When sport climbing was compartively new this was the way things were done. I think I've still got the old CC(?) guide to Portland where the bolted routes are given E-grades and sport grades follow in parentheses.

Funnily enough these days I usually do the reverse and wonder what sport grade a given trad route would get - and I climbed trad for over ten before clipping my first bolt. Horses for courses and all that, although your method does break down in the higher grades, as one glance at the grade comparison tables will show.

In reply to GrahamD:


I usually think of a reasonably protected E2 as 6a+/6b, so I'd agree with you.