In reply to Robert Durran:
> But people freeing big routes on El Cap and so on talk about onsighting some pitches and having to work others. You can clearly onsight individual pitches of a route.
Yup, when roped climbing, the defining factor is one rope length or pitch. You either manage to onsight it or not. If you climb a multipitch route, say on El Cap and you Onsight all but one pitch (which went 3rd go), you did not manage to onsight the whole route. I recall the late Swiss Machine got really close on Freerider during his honeymoon, but ultimately fell on the crux pitch and go it clean second go. So no OS for Ueli for Freerider.
Ondra got close on Salathe, but same deal.. albeit Ondra tried to OS Salathe in 24h...
I might be mistaken, but I do think on El Cap proper, no route has been Onsighted. Flashed, yes by Pete Whittaker... BUT (albeit now yer all gonna get me) for a flash, I'd say you need to get all the pitches clean first go... if you climb variant A and fall... that's it. Even if you then manage to flash variant B . Note that Teflon Corner and The Move are completely separate pitches, so in all honestly they should be two different lines --> Freerider Move and Freerider Telfon ...