UKC

Dani Andrada has repeated Barnabé Fernandez' Chilam Balam, ~9b, at Villanueva del Rosario just north of Malaga in southern Spain.

Dani's ascent was the fourth, after Fernandez (2003), Adam Ondra (2011) and Seb Bouin (2015). He and Edu Marin have been working the route...

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In reply to UKC News:

Fine effort.

I think there was some discrepancy about the final boulder problem too, with suggestions from font 7a+ to 7c.

Interestingly according to 8a he got 25 hands off, knee bar rests!

In reply to stp:

It should be noted that he climbed it with knee pads. Dave Graham used knee pads on Thor's Hammer. As did Ethan Pringle. In my opinion the manner in which they are climbed should count and the 'clean' ascents of Chilam Balam (Ondra) and Thor's Hammer (Ondra, Megos, Schubert, Woods) shouldn't be lumped automatically in the same basket.

Nevertheless impressive stuff by Dani Andrada.

In reply to DanGreb:

I hear some climbers have been known to wear shoes. Are these clean ascents?

In reply to DanGreb:

How do we know whether Bernabe climbed it without knee pads? People have been making their own for ages in this area of the world.

In reply to joem:

You don't think the knee pads helped Andrada in any way on those 25 knee bar rests? This is the guy who disparaged Ondra when he was a boy with offensive remarks about his physique in the Fanatical Search and called him 2 grams in interviews.

In reply to DanGreb:

Ondra is wearing a kneepad on the route on the back of the catalunya guide, the BD ad.

In reply to DanGreb:
Don't know if this makes a difference or not, but here's what he said on the topic;

Translated from the Spanish interview, in the Desnivel magazine;...''Since I don't like (feel comfortable) wearing kneepads, I wear a kneepad just for the first part (up to the middle) of the route, where there's a better rest point for me to took the kneeepad off and climb to the top''
In another paragraph he comes to say that the kneebars don't make for real (good) rests, being very tiring on the abs. Though is safe to think he found them of some use, otherwise he wouldn't used none...
In my eyes there's no problem as long as anyone (claiming an ascent) don't lie or leave relevant details out, such as kneepads, crack-gloves, pre-placed gear, etc...

In reply to teddy:

I stand corrected. My recollection was faulty about Ondra's ascent. Still my opinion is unchanged and I still stand by my assertion that it should be noted when a person has used knee pads, especially when the first ascensionists haven't.

In reply to progrupicola:

progrupicola, it wasn't my idea to devalue Andrada's ascent. It's an amazing accomplishment. I was under the impression that Ondra did it without knee pads. As teddy pointed out he used one. I was wrong. I agree that full transparency is essential. I know my opinion was unpopular but I will restate it in the future if the need arises. Everyone thought that Ramonet was beeing a bad sport when he pointed out that nobody had climbed his FA La Rambla but he made perfect sense to me after I watched all the other ascents. Ramonet climbed La Rambla Direct Finish, Ondra climbed it slightly to the right and everybody else I've seen on video has climbed the Right Finish with the big flake rest.

In reply to DanGreb:

Its an interesting question about the knee pads. On one hand its smart to use the best beta. On the other they can massively devalue the difficulty of a route. Mecca at Raven Tor is said to be a grade easier if you use a commercial knee pad to get a hands off halfway up the route.

The problem comes later though, after people stop watching ascents of a route. If everyone does a route with knee pads, yet the given grade is for without it can mess up people's perception of how difficult that specific grade is meant to be.

In reply to stp:
I think knee pads will be like sticky rubber, chalk, cans and bouldering mats. At first a few people will grumble and say they're cheating. Then they'll gradually become the excepted norm and just sensible progress. They're hardly ridiculously complicated technology that's bringing the rock down to our level or something. It's just a bit of rubber stuck to your knee. Didn't don whillans strap a motorbike inner tube to his thighs when attempting archangel? Haven't loads of people over the years worn jeans because they give better friction? Don't get me wrong they definitely help. I've just come back from rodellar where I onsighted some routes that I'm sure I would have fallen off without a knee pad. But it's just good tactics really. Having to state whether you used one or not seems a bit daft to me. Do you have to state whether you used good shoes or rubbish ones? Did it in good conditions or not? What brand of chalk? How much you trained?

In reply to GDes:

Maybe all that's needed is on those routes where there's a grade difference the routes should be given dual grades for with and without a commercial knee pad.

In reply to stp:

Keep it simple, one grade pads or no pads. If u choose to make it harder and leave the pad at home that's your choice. There are not separate grades for wearing sticky boots or trainers. The latter would make any ascent way harder but nobody says regrade for an ascent in trainers!

In reply to GDes:


Don, I thought, but yes, quite. I've never really been able to visualise how that would help. Anyone managed to replicate this feat?

jcm

In reply to stp:


But a really good home made one would be OK?

Down that road madness lies.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:


My guess (just a guess) is that he went face on to the arete, clasped his hands on it, elbows each side, gripped it with his inner tubed thighs, a cheval and, in that dreadful Americanism did a rinse and repeat. (Think offwidth technique but without the crack!) Quite insanely strong and acrobatic, if so. In 1950s photos, he seems to have been a really wiry little bugger, exactly the physique to get away with a feat like that. Still seems amazing...

Drummond's realisation that you could simply layback a grit arete fulfils my definition of genius ('Simplicity in retrospect.') Once Archangel had been done, suddenly every grit arete became fair game.

Mick (sorry for the thread disgression!)

In reply to teddy:


Of course, multiple grades for pads - of whatever variety - or no pads, sticky or not, tweed or not tweed, will be unworkable. But my own feeling is that there is a tendency to equivocate the subsequent "easier" ascent to the original, "harder" ascent, to hold onto the grade. There seems to be a resistance to downgrade routes after new beta has been developed with new technology.

People want to separate themselves out into groups - the who haves (climbed x, y or z) from those who haven'ts, and I think there is a sense of injustice that arises when a supposedly significant ascent is claimed with new "tactics" without due deference to the difficulty of the ascent without. How would you feel claiming an ascent of Hubble with a knee pad?

Sport in general is full of examples of where new technology has been ruled out in order to make the competitiveness of the sport viable. We want to feel we're all playing the same game. For me, using a knee bar is good tactics; using a knee pad is good technology. I think most people probably want to feel that they are making the difference, rather than the technology, but something as simple as waiting for good conditions is an example of using good tactics to make the most of the available technology!

Personally, I think I prefer to reduce the amount of gear I'm reliant on, to make an ascent, and I can imagine that some of the reaction to the increasing use of knee pads is due to similar sentiment.

It's good to hear that, regarding this particular ascent, there is so much debate about the grade. However, I still wonder how much that discussion is weighted towards the original grade, more than the original tactics.

In reply to DAVETHOMAS90:

How would you feel claiming an ascent of Hubble with a knee pad?

>personally, I'd be pretty chuffed with that.

In reply to teddy:


True but that's because everyone has sticky boots. Most climbers don't own a knee pad. They're pretty expensive and only useful on a small minority of routes.

In reply to GDes:

Interestingly with bouldering pads we have now adopted two different grades. If someone does a bold grit route made safe by a stack of pads at the bottom its obvious they can't claim to have done an E-whatever-grade route. Instead the font grade is used.

With knee pads a crux move can magically be turned into a hands off rest. Clearly there are two different levels of difficulty in such a case. The question is how should that be acknowledged in a guide book or by the climbing community? To give it one grade without further comment seems like an ambiguous description.

In reply to stp:

Most sport climbers own kneepads nowadays

In reply to climbercool:

I wouldn't consider it an ascent of Hubble. The move - the iconic move into the undercut pocket - is probably what a lot of people associate with the route, a source of inspiration. I've heard recently that it precedes a hard 7C+ sequence. Though wasn't it considered 8B+ in it's entirety?

No, for me, it wouldn't be the same route - not the one that Ben, Malc, Steve x 2, Simpson and Gaskins have climbed. I think I've got that list right. I'd want to share in the same experience that they had. Doing it with the pad would say "Great, I've got a chance of doing the route!" but I'd rather remain inspired by the original!

In reply to DAVETHOMAS90:


Dave, I think this is what it boils down to: do people want the experience - or do they want the (possibly flawed?)tick?

Either way, on desperately hard routes, ascentionists are going to have to give so much of themselves - which is, of course, hugely deserving of respect.

But, at the proverbial end of the day, which is it - the experience or the tick?

Mick (who'd probably just take the sodding tick!)

In reply to Mick Ward:
The experience of climbing things using cool sequences and in a way which isn't a shitty eliminate.

DT - as ever we disagree on almost everything!

P.s. whoever was talking about Thor's - Woods will probably have used pads if they help, he's used them plenty in the past

In reply to abarro81:


If you're talking about the commercial ones made with sticky rubber and cost about £50 I very much doubt that's true. Maybe amongst the high grade, semi professional climbers possibly. Too much investment for too little use for most people I think.

In reply to DAVETHOMAS90:


Hubble is a very interesting case. What if knee pads reduced the grade, as they might well possibly do. The goal of repeating the world's first 9a, of seeing if you've reached the standards of the past masters, but then climbing it in such a way that it's only 8c+ would surely be dissatisfying I'd have thought. And to do so might be seen as a failure: you'd have failed the true challenge of the route possibly, which is all about power.

In reply to stp:

If you go to Malham/Kilnsey/the tor most people there climbing >8a will have a pad or will be with someone they can borrow one off. (This may be homemade or commercial but that's a meaningless distinction since some of the best pads out there are homemade.)

In reply to abarro81:

If we count those climbing harder than 8a then that's definitely not most sport climbers.

The distinction between cheap/home made and the 5.10 type is not just about performance but of cost. Unlike boots, which get used on every single route, the need for a specialist knee pad is extremely rare. This year I only came across one route where a knee pad would have been really helpful. Do I want to shell out £50 on something that next year I might only use once or maybe not use at all? That's the cost of a months membership to a local wall and I'll do a lot more routes spending there than on a kneepad.

In reply to stp:
Make a homemade one for 15 quid - buy a non slip thigh support and glue a sheet of rand rubber (£7 ish) to the front using shoo goo or similar...

In reply to abarro81:

Sounds like a bargain. Where do you buy sheets of rand rubber from though?

In reply to stp:
Any resole shop should be able to provide it, I've had it from llamberis resoles in the past. Make sure it's a thigh support rather than a knee support and when glueing it leave it under a pile of books for 24hrs to let the set well. I also put a book in the support whilst doing it so that it's slightly stretched like it would be on your leg.. Can work better than the 5.10s in my experience, though the 'send' pads are the best in my experience

In reply to abarro81:

Thanks. Will have a go for next year then.