UKC

what percent of climbers climb at 8a i rekon is 30 percent

In reply to ribtech:
3 maybe

In reply to ribtech:

percentage

In reply to ribtech:

Define climber, climb and climb at 8a. Onsight? Flash? Redpoint? Pinkpoint? Ballpoint? French 8a, Font 8a, Brit 8a?

Anyway you spin it, its a shit load lower than 30%.

In reply to ribtech:

lot lower than 30 percent ,bit like a golf handicap you may play off 3 or 4 but you don't do it all the time .does 1 success at 8a make you an 8a climber ..I think not

In reply to ribtech:
I've been climbing for four years and go to the wall two or three times a week.
I reckon on an average night there might be one person (out of a about a hundred climbers) who can climb 8a.
The Foundry may have up to 6 or 7 (out of maybe 200 climbers) in an evening.
Whatever way you look at it it's gonna be under 5%.
I reckon more like 1-3% percent though if looking across the whole of the uk.

In reply to deacondeacon:
Out of 26 people I've climbed with the last few years only one (going on their UKC profile), or possibly two, have redpointed 8a. So certainly less than 10%, and likely less than 5%.

In reply to ribtech:
If im reading this right...

http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/graphs.html

0.7% of Climbs logged on UKC are 8a or above. So im Assuming a very low Percentage are Climbing in Those Grades, way Lower than 30%.

In reply to deacondeacon:

But take into account the fact that on average a climber will climb maybe once each week and you realise that your chances of seeing a typical 8a climber (who will climb maybe 5 times each week) at a wall may be five times higher, so the % in the climbing population may be 5 times lower than the % seen at the wall.

In reply to ribtech:

In the UK, a large percentage of climbers don't climb sport routes at all outside. Probably less than 30% of UK climbers 'work' sports routes at any grade, never mind 8a.

In reply to Choss:


It's Good to see the Spirit of empiricism is still with Us. (Sorry, just couldn't resist!)

[To the OP] There aren't even 30% of climbers who can get up 7a. You've been drinking too much lager, mate.

Mick

In reply to ribtech: Depends which crag you visit. Raven Tor/Malham your looking 50%+, Stanage 0.05%.

Andy F

In reply to andy farnell:



I have been to Malham and Raven Tor and didn't see anybody actually climbing, just loads of folks hanging off bolts,


Chris

In reply to ribtech:

If you used typical wall route spread as an indication of demand then:
Kendal has in excess of 160 routes, last week there was one route at 8a.
Liverpool is about the same.
Stockport had 2 but out of possibly 200(?) last time I was there.

So the commercial providers are aiming at lower than 1%. Which seems about right to me.

we were discussing the other day that the general UK standard seems to be about 6a+ - we reckoned the general French/Italian standard was closer to 7a.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

I've been to Stanage and seen lots of people with gear just standing around at the base.

In reply to Choss:



I'm very skeptical about basing opinions on stats on the d/b here. I've been to quite a few crags now where I've seen folk climb hard routes, then when I checked on the UKC database later, they've never been logged.

In reply to Fraser:


For sure. I was just using it as one Loose guide that few people out of the number of Climbers Climb at that Grade. Certainly much less than 30% i reckon.

In reply to Kelcat:

But then, I'm told by the kind of person who ought to know, very few hard climbers train on "at-limit" routes (I.e. they might use easier ones for stamina laps etc, but it'd be rare to find an 8b climber training by trying to project an 8b indoor route, were one available).

From my experience, I've rarely been the best climber I know at the wall, and never the best person bouldering on the boulder wall (unless I'm on my own!), but I have a number of times been the person trying the hardest roped routes - strong climbers just don't seem to train on routes so much.

In reply to Choss:


Yep, I'd definitely agree with you there. I'd guess from folk climbing regularly, ie once a week or more, somewhere between 1-3% climb F8a.

In reply to Fraser:

G

Got to be well under 1%

In reply to Robert Durran:

That was actually my first response too, but then I felt more generous. I was thinking that most people climbing once a week or more have no major impediment to climbing F8a.

In reply to ribtech:
I'd agree that the question needs further clarification. Whether it is potential, ability or actually trains on 8a.

For instance, I know a guy who just boulders. The other day there was the usual banter about him finishing his warm up and actually starting to climb upwards. He put on his shoe carrier (harness), walked into the lead wall are, lead the only 8a there, laughed and went back to bouldering.

Oh, and they then downgraded the route because it was too easy for him, despite no-one else having managed it.

In reply to Fraser:

I'm reasonably confident that nobody that only climbs once a week is doing 8a.

In reply to ribtech: Nice one. Very entertaining but I have to call it. Troll

In reply to Oceanrower:


Probably very true, but that's not quite what I said, or rather, was trying to say. If someone's only ever climbed once a week, achieving 8a is optimistic to say the least! But for others who've climbed more frequently in the past and have built up that long-term finger strength, I know of two friends who now only climb once a week and still manage 8a. They'd be in that less-than-1% (tbc) category mentioned above though.

In reply to Robert Durran:

My pulling-numbers-out-of-the air guess would be that somewhere around 1% of climbers or less have ever redpointed 8a.

My local walls, according to their routes databases, have 2% of their routes at 8a & above.

In reply to Oceanrower:

In Suirana last year, there was an Austrian guy who hadn't rock or indoor climbed in 9 months, he'd just done winter stuff in Patagonia and the Alps and was therefore strong armed and shouldered. He was battering up 8a as good as anyone... he'd obviously climbed at that grade before and also had more than a few mates who climbed 9a. He just got on with it. I got the impression that he expected it of himself and that was that.

On the other hand - Pinnacle in Northampton isn't the biggest wall but at least three members of the staff can do 8a, there's also a GB youth climber who flashed the one up at the moment and it wouldn't surprise me if another 5/6 of the regular climbers there get 8a this summer. That's only the people I know of but they all climb lots, it's a lifestyle.

In reply to mrchewy:

I would never trust indoor grades. I move around several walls, and in some I lead 6c+ frequently and in others struggle on 6b. The style of route also affects my climbing grade. Indoor grades are even more hit and miss than the grade of TPS. In one wall, up to 6b are very easy, 6c and upwards are very hard relative to grades elsewhere. (using knowledge from a much harder climber than me for the 6c comment) This must be a marketing ploy to make lower grade climbers feel better/have a stroked ego!
Going outdoors I frequently see people "working" hard routes. Often using a clipstick to toprope them. I rarely see many people making a clean ascent of 8a or harder, even after I know they have worked it. Most of the working seems to be on the 7a ish grade.
I suspect that 8a or harder lead climbers number well below the 1% level
I must add that I don't go to sport crags very often. Personally I find the grades I can get up boring and sterile. I also like to keep my tee shirt on and beenie off.

In reply to deacondeacon:


More than that. There's quite often 4 or 5 8c climbers there any given evening

In reply to Robert Durran:


Agreed. Would be surprised if it was as much as 0.5%

In reply to abarro81:
Yeah but that's Sheffield, which probably has the highest concentration of (good) climbers in the country. Out of the two lead walls in Birmingham, one normally has routes up to only about 7b+ and the other has a couple at around 8a. The guy who sets them can climb at that level, not sure if there's anyone else but there won't be many! I'd say 8a climbers are less than 1% of the climbing population round here.

In reply to ribtech:

I can totally climb 30% of 8a!

In reply to ribtech:

alot of people i have climbed with climb 8a,as a whole id say less than 1 percent

In reply to ribtech:

Significantly less than 1%

In reply to abarro81:


I was skeptical, but I can actually think of a few in there when I ponder it.

In reply to ribtech:

Ribtickler more like - 30% ??!! Have you been drinking or something? Less than 1%, less than 0.25% I bet....

In reply to ribtech:


More like twice that - I reckon 60% of people i climb with regularly have climbed at least one 8a...

In reply to Chris Craggs:

love it Chris that's my experience as well

In reply to Misha:


+1
I've just moved back to Sheff. While I was away, I was pretty happy about progress, but an afternoon back at the Works and the Foundry put everything back into depressing context!

In reply to Ally Smith:


Haha, but the question wasn't about your partners.

In reply to paul_in_cumbria:
See it as a great opportunity to get better. One of the things that holds back many people (myself included) is lack of strong partners, people who are better than you and inspire you to train and try harder. From that perspective Sheffield must be great.

In reply to ribtech:

About 53% of my main climbing partners have climbed 8a. Over the whole climbing population I would say it was less than 1%. Although there are probably plenty of people who just climb a few times of year doing a diff in the mountains or something so it depends on where you draw the line. I'd say about 1% of climbers who have climbed above 7a have also climbed 8a.

In reply to JM:


I suspect that's not too far off the mark and a good way of sensibly narrowing it down to those prepared to do at least some dedicated training.

In reply to ribtech:

I think a lot of people are using the wrong statistics to estimate percentage of 8a climbers here;
"percentage of 8a routes at the local wall" - Indoor walls have a higher ratio of hard routes to hard climbers than moderate routes to moderate climbers. Firstly because hard climbers (who go indoors) visit the wall more often and secondly because even if the number of hard climbers is very small, a selection of routes at hard grades are needed to occupy these hard climbers (if only one token route is present, anyone climbing hard will go elsewhere).

"percentage of 8a ticks on UKC" - If one climber records their entire holiday of routes, the logbook population might have one 8a and twenty easier routes. Multiply this effect by thousands of climbers and it's obvious that you can't estimate a percentage of 8a climbers from this.
A much better (though far from perfect) method would be to ask a UKC mod to post a bar graph showing maximum sport grade claimed in the profiles of all users (including a zero grade for users without a max sport grade recorded). You might want to exclude those without a profile. In the end you would still get an overrepresentation of harder climbers though I think because casual climbers at the lower end of the difficulty scale will be less likely to be UKC members than those who are more dedicated to the sport.

"percentage of 8a climbers I know/see/heard of" - Any claim based on this is going to be wildly inaccurate. Nobody has anything even approaching a big enough or balanced enough sample size.

I think a good way to get a vaguely accurate percentage would be to ask someone like the BMC or do some googling to find a percentage of people in the UK who climb. An approximate stat for that must be floating around. Then get some empirical figures for numbers of 8a climbers in various city/areas. I think the best way to go about this would be to create a thread asking people who climb 8a to post with:
- Where they live.
- how many other 8a climbers they know of in their city/surrounds.
For repeat posts of people in the same area, take the higher number and ignore the lower. Tot these up, estimate the percentage of population covered by all the replies (many areas will not get replies of course) and correct so the total is relative to the UK-wide population. You might want to double or triple this to take account of the fact that not all hard climbers in an area will be known to all other hard climbers in the area but I think at that sort of level there is unlikely to be more than three distinct groups of hard climbers in an area who are not aware of each other (hard climbers do generally climb with or at least know other hard climbers in their area).
Combine the two numbers, do the sum and Bobs your uncle!

All we need is someone keen to go and make another thread

(and I'll eat my laptop with BBQ sauce if it's more than 1%.)