UKC

Offshooting from Paul Sagars post as this has popped a few questions into my mind.

How often are trad climbers really onsight climbing at top sport grade?

How many grades in had do people have when they are leading trad routes? 

I'll go first, when I was leading E2 regularly I was onsighting 6c in a similar style with reasonable frequency. I'm not the best example as I am notorious among my friends for not being a bold climber.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

This relationship between onsighting sport grades and trad grades climbed Is interesting and has probably shifted as I’ve aged.  I used to onsight 6c and be solid on Peak E3.  I was usually okay on E4 at that time.

Move on thirty years and I’m usually onsighting 6b, but only occasionally doing E2.  I have had several years off so am still building up and hoping I can reinstate the old rate of exchange!

In reply to dinodinosaur:

For me, never.

My top sport onsight grade is a "leaving it all on the wall" full bore effort, as likely to fail as not sort of grade. I couldn't do it whilst carrying a full rack and stopping for a lot longer placing gear versus just clipping bolts.

For me, the equivalence was between my first/second warmup grades and my trad grade - i.e. if I'd maybe do 6b+ as a hard first warmup or 6c/+ as a second warmup that would equate to my climbing E3/4. It probably doesn't any more, admittedly, because I am desperately out of trad practice (although maybe it would, given I am also out of sport practice?).

In reply to dinodinosaur:

My consistent OS grade for sport is somewhere around f6B to f6c (provided I have climbed a bit with rope… from only bouldering or from the sofa for a year or two, it’s closer to 6b). And for trad routes, it’s around f6a to f6b. And low in the danger aspect. I’m fine with runouts (on slabs) provided the actual fall is safe. Often not having a lot of stamina (due to mainly bouldering), not too keen on long sustained overhangs as I’ll simply pump out.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

There might be the odd trad route that can compare but for me sport and trad are just too different to make any sort of comparison. A bit like running around a track and running up a muddy wet hill!

I think people vastly over inflate sport grades of trad routes and similarly bouldering grades of crux’s on sport routes. 
 

I mean imagine doing something like megalithic man at horseshoe on trad gear. It’s 6b+. I onsight 7b on good day. And I’d have a hard time on megalithic man on gear for sure. It’d take me about 2hrs for a start . 

In reply to dinodinosaur:

If it's a very safe trad route I'll be right at my sport limit. If its a 12m solo I'll have plenty of grades in hand. No fixed rules at all.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

For what it's worth, 6a+ / HVS.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

I never did much of both at the same time. Onsight sport was never really what I enjoyed but fittness is fitness so I was briefly onsighting low F7s and I think about the same time getting up occasional, safe E2s, also following mates up more adventurous stuff in the E4-5 range. So say 7a/+ sport, F6b/+ trad. I wasn't ever a bold climber, I never had much of a problem with falling but really don't like sticking my neck out. Most of the trad I did for reasons of geography was grit so often very bouldery for the grade or with necky moves which needed to be super easy/secure for me to get on them, not a great way to convert sport fitness into ticks.

For most of my climbing career I was trad climbing with an F letter grade or two in hand (yet still occasionally muffing it and falling).

jk

In reply to dinodinosaur:

Almost nobody, ever. By a mile. Pretty much but definition. Unless they are hardly trying at all when onsighting sport.

In reply to Robert Durran:

This is the answer I think.

In reply to DaveHK:

Yes, the only scenario I can think of without being incredibly contrived would be a route with some bombproof but effortless to place gear and then a long run out with a safe fall - someone with a very good head might climb to their sport onsight limit on that.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Cracks maybe. Especially if the climber is a specialist.

I don't know what Pete Whittaker's top sport RP is but isn't Recovery Drink supposed to be 8C+? I'm sure he could probably climb a harder route of the same style on bolts though but they don't tend to exist. 

I think if the crack is uniform and you have a good idea of the gear before leaving the ground it can't be much different to clipping bolts. Maybe even better, as you get to choose where you put the gear or not. 

In reply to Robert Durran:

You just described a lot of granit trad. Either there is gear (cracks) and it is easy to place. Or there is no gear (slab).

the more featured the rock is, the less obvious the gear will be (even if the rock would offer much more in the holds).

In reply to PaulJepson:

But we are talking about onsighting. As far as headpointing at your top Redpoint grade, then yes it might be closer because you would know exactly what gear is available and how reliable it is, so you could possibly choose to place just enough easy to place gear not to deck out.

In reply to Robert Durran:

I would have thought so - you can trim the rack down to only what you intend to place, you can place less because you know what's coming (no placing wires mid crux because you aren't sure how much further it is to the next good piece), you can place less because you can sort out the absolute best piece to place at each point, you'll probably climb at a more similar pace (I assume a sport onsight would tend to be faster than a trad onsight for most, whereas on a redpoint there's no reason not to climb at the same pace) and so on. 

Certainly I would have thought I could get a grade or two closer to my sport redpoint max on a headpoint than I could to my max sport onsight grade on a trad onsight.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

Are you certain you can definitely say that sport grade X always equals trad grade Y though? I've been regularly onsighting 6a and 6a+ the last couple of years and people seem to say that is equivalent to E1. But last summer I did a 6a as a warm up for an HVS next to it, and reckon the HVS was just as hard physically - it was crack with good regular kit so I wasn't scared - indeed lots more runners than the bolts on the routes next door. The grit E1s I've seconded feel physically way harder than the limestone 6as and 6a+s i've done nearby. Embarrasingly I couldn't really do the start moves seconding Surform (E1 5b) back in the late autumn. It wasn't great conditions, but still - the thing is a beast! I had been onsighting 6a and 6a+ most weeks running up to that.

In reply to TobyA:  How much is that a grit versus limestone style thing tho'.  I was having exactly this same discussion last night with someone who thought Flying Buttress Direct was hard for 6a , but he'd never climbed grit before

To the OP, almost noone I expect - you're comparing being right at your limit physically and only need to clip draws, versus carrying and placing gear, even if it's bomber.  They're obviously different grades - you only have a defined max amount of energy..

In reply to Robert Durran:

That's very final! 

When I was living in the alps, I was regularly on sighting f6c pitches, usually onsighting f6c+ and managed a few f7a pitches too, and even one f7a+ on the Brandler Hasse. All trad, all onsight. (ok, BH has 14/15 pegs on the f7a+ pitch, so somewhere in between full trad and adventure alpine sport)

On sport I was only onsighted one f7a+ in the 4 years I was there and I didn't onsight any f7bs etiher. A few f7a+ and f7b second go.

I wouldn't have said I was a total outlier out there, but I do see it being a bit different from the UK trad scene.

In reply to wbo2:

Possibly. I've not done FBD even seconding because I just have 'mares on overhangs like that. 

Basically all my hardest trad routes have been on granite in Norway and Finland, so I'm not sure - but I climb grit regularly now (live about 10 minutes from Curbar), but I'm still probably only on about 60:40 for getting up grit HVS onsight and I can't think of any grit E1s I've onsighted beyond that handcrack at the right end of Baslow which is actually about VS I reckon if you are happy on handjams!

In reply to Alasdair Fulton:

That's interesting. Do you think that the trad grades were at all "adjusted" or would they have been the same fully bolted on a sport crag? 

In reply to TobyA:

FBD is far more intimidating to look at than it is to climb.

With regard to the OP when I was climbing 6c regularly with the odd 7a thrown in for good measure I was climbing E3 with the odd E4 now and again.  I only ever climbed on sight. I would push the boat out a bit on sport but was less inclined to do so on trad and only when the pro was good or if I felt in control.  On a slab for example as I was always better at technical climbing than thuggy climbing so the character of the route did play a huge part.

Al

In reply to dinodinosaur:

When I sent the other thread to my Dad he said he would have been having a hard time on 6bs at the time but he found Resurrection alright...

For a long time my grades were possibly a bit higher for trad at ~E3 6a vs ~6b. I've gotten stronger recently so my sport grade has gone up while my trad grade hasn't which seems to be the more normal way.

Back then I did much more trad than sport and didn't like falling on either. I think as well maybe at those kinds of grades the routes are less often devoid of rests and unrelentingly steep, so the faff and weight doesn't matter as much, but the main thing for me was probably just pure desire to get up them. I was always more likely to give a classic trad line everything I humanly had than a random euro sport route I didn't know the name of that everyone else was warming up on.

Another factor for me with trad is how you can climb yourself into a relatively safe but frightening feeling situation where if there was a bolt to sag onto you would but as there isn't you'd best push on while utterly boxed.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

This surely depends on if you factor hanging around placing gear in to the sport grade. If you don't, then by definition you won't be climbing as hard on a pumpy route compared to if all you had to do was clip the bolts. If you do factor it in, then if you go all out on a well protected route it will be comparable to going all out on a bolted route. 

In reply to dinodinosaur:

None. It's always been the opposite way round for me, I find it too easy to back off sport routes whereas on trad I find the additional uncertainty over gear placements to be a motivational factor.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

I was leading HVS very regularly some years ago but could onsight F6a+ outside on bolts pretty regularly and up to F6b+, I suppose solid at F6a. In winter I could lead grade 5 in good ice / neve (and if its not a sandbag). Placing gear and reading the line takes energy too remember.

In reply to Robert Durran:

By a mile?  What is a mile? Difficult to be definite with sport grades for trad routes but I've seen 7a+ mentioned for a few of my trad onsights (e.g. Splitstream, Kicker Conspiracy), my best sport o/s is 7b so doesn't seem like a mile, even if they're actually more like 7a.

My climbing partner in the 90s os Great White at Blue Scar (E6) which I think is considered 7b and his best sport o/s was 7b+ so again not that far off. 

In reply to dinodinosaur:

Interesting question. Pre-pandemic I was getting fairly solid at onsighting 7a/+ on sport (and had been lucky with a couple of 7b's) and was solid at E2 5b on trad. Since then my sport fitness has dropped a little but last year I started to get a bit more comfortable at E3 5c/6a.

I struggle with my head on trad so I'll likely always have a bit of decent gap between sport/trad onsight grades. Forever working on closing the gap

In reply to Robert Durran:

That's most trad climbers, in my experience.  To be fair they probably think they're trying hard, but seem to (as if by magic) run out of steam right by a bolt.

Let the dislikes flow like honey

In reply to LukeDclimber:

There’s quite a lot in this. Sport grade is part of the equation, but onsighting a permachalked line up some nice orange limestone with bolts to aim for is going to be really different to questing up some semi-green mountain face climb, or a grit arête, or technical crack. 
 

Also, even good trad climbers still don’t climb perfectly efficiently, or at least as close to it as you can (like you might be able to more easily on sport). Runouts , not being totally convinced about the gear, unsure how to do a crux, unsure when the hard climbing will end or where the next bit of kit is, all slows you down. Route finding is often not mega obvious? I compare trad climbing to climbing a sport route really really badly; you probably stop in aweful places to fiddle in kit, you reverse crux sequences loads of times etc. 
 

The sport grade helps give you a picture of the difficulty of a trad route, but god-damn unless you’ve got it pretty sorted it aaaallways feels harder to me. I onsight up to about 7b/+ in the U.K. end e5 on the trad. I think when I climbed around 7a/7b I was doing a lot of e4s. Abroad where lines are steeper, longer, on better holds and probably softer I occasionally hang on for something harder. Kneebarring up tufas isn’t the same as some thin and sustained slab/wall climb. 

Fitness is really handy though, and one thing sport climbing really teaches you is how to climb when you’re red-lining, and where about that limit really is. Get 20% pumped on trad and you think you’ve got a problem, really there’s loads left in the tank. 

In reply to Andy Gamisou:

Isn’t it the other way round?! Trad climbers are used to hanging on for dear life. Sport climbers just say take?

In reply to George_Surf:

Nope. For Sport OS, they don’t need to yell take. They simple go for it, and either make it or fall. The tradsters is the one that is not comfortable with falling (even on bolts).

so the tradster will certainly hold on for dear life on a trad route (cause he’s scared of falling and not sure If the gear will hold). But the bolt, thats a safe gear so yelling ’take’ is easy.

bolt clippers will often still yell take as well, but more often than not this is on a redpoint burn on a project (or in fact a possible future project).

oh, and some one else raised a valid point. When doing these comparisons, it should be like for like. So not Grit trad vs Spanish limestone fest, but say a bolted granite line and a granite trad line next to it. In fact two of my long term projects (have either worked or at least spoiled my OS on both) are only a few meters apart. Both are on granite and have cracks on ’em. They are Nu Moon (7a) ~f7a (or was it with a +) sport and Tony Hawk (E4 6a) also f7a. And imho they would be about the same difficulty to climb (also OS). While you fo not need to fiddle gear on the sport line, it has a bit more devious sequences (easier to missread), where as the trad one is more straight forward, and has better rests but placing the easy to read gear will make it feel a tad more taxing. Overall, on TR the trad one feels perhaps a hair easier (not surpricing if the orig grades hold True, IIRC 7a+ for the bolted one and 7a for the trad).

now if you compare Apples to oranges, say a thin just shy of vertical polished grit trad nightmare to a jugs gallore overhanging Kalymnos grid bolted pump fest of the same (sport) grade. OS the latter will most likely feel a lot easier, provided you have some stamina. 

In reply to George_Surf:

So the stereotype would say but not always.  Quite a lot of trad climbers can be used to staying in control and not being in positions where falling feels likely, pushing on above a bolt when you feel like you could fall any move is a bit different. 

In reply to dinodinosaur: Obviously it depends on how bold the trad routes are but I would say my on sight grades are 6b+ for sport and for trad maybe well protected E2, (which is probably 6a+/6b). However, I’d struggle to lead a trad route with bold f6a climbing.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

My hardest headpoint route would probably get the same French grade as my hardest sport redpoint (although the headpoint was a longer-term project). And my hardest trad onsight would probably get within one notch of my hardest sport onsight grade. So not a lot of difference really.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

An interesting question which keeps coming up, it is of course comparing  apples and oranges.

I have onsighted a fair few 7a+s and E3. Friends who climb much, much harder claim that at os 7a I should be on E5/6s. I beg to differ.

Sport is different, lines follow the holds rather than the gear and I am far more likely to go "balls out" for the chain. Within sport, it is much more about style than grade, there can be 2 to 3 grades difference in styles for me. It is also easier to advance through sport grades, routes are more accessible, you get more done in a day, you are on holiday in a dry climate you are surrounded by a supportive holiday atmosphere. Trad it's you and your mate terrified in the cold drizzle. I exaggerate but... 

Then to confuse the issue further there is winter climbing, where things become respectable again.

The thing to do is to measure yourself against yourself. 

In reply to Presley Whippet:

I tend to agree with your friends

I would guess that, for the average moderately bold all round climber who does a fair bit of sport onisghting, and a lot of time trad onsighting, the average difference would be maybe a letter grade to 1.5?  Eg:

E1: 6a+/b

E2: 6b+/6c

E3: 6c+/7a

Etc.

If you're operating  much closer I'd hazard that a) you're probably not doing a tonne of sport onsighting, b) you're not going balls-out when sport climbing.

When I was quite close I was doing 1000s of metres of alpine granite each season, with only sporadic sport trips and many of them were in the notoriously sandbag Finale Ligure, and I had the added hindrance of being a bit unwilling to push above bolts as my partner was a lot lighter, and, at the time a bit of an inexperienced belayer.

That said, even now I'm onsighting the odd 7b on sport (spain, not UK....) and climbing E4/E5, so it ranges between a + grade a 1.5 letter grades difference. (this would be much easier to epxlain if we used Aussie grades haha!)

In reply to Robert Durran:

It's so hard to compare. It's French grades in France... "Adjusted" not sure, but you do certainly get maybe a half letter grade for altitude / seriousness on some routes. But arguably that just levels the playing field.

I'm also not really sure if French grades for naturally protected routes are given for the difficulty of the "moves" (i.e. if it were top-roped), or if they just give the grade for the average difficulty including the placing of the gear.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

If you take the grade out the equation as it can be hard to compare some sport and trad. It's interesting to consider how many onsight trad falls are you taking Vs sport falls?

The younger me used to take a fair few trad falls so was probably on my limit more often. Defo not climb like that now, not sure why.

Also loads of retro bolted limestone in the peak District. The retro bolted E4s getting mileage now at around 6C. I have tried some of them with a trad rack after sport accent, and it's surprising how much harder they can feel, and thats when I know the route!

In reply to LJH:

I expect people taking trad falls are assuming they are at their limit, but take away the weight of a rack as you've suggested and I imagine they would be able to climb harder.

And that's not even taking into account the placing gear and route finding element of questing up into unknown sequences.

I can imagine bold climbers who carry little rack and climb on slabbier more restful terrain would be able to onsight trad nearer their true physical limit but I feel these people are outliers rather than the norm

In reply to dinodinosaur:

Knowing where your next good runner is makes a big difference.

I often climb with someone much better than me and for my sins we leave his runners and pull the rope's then I climb sport style onsight.

I climb faster and less timid as I just sprint between runners. It probably takes my trad grade up 2 notches.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

Yes that's me. Can generally lead or solo 5a slabs but converts to grade 5 on an indoor wall. I tried a 6a sport route once but it didn't have any holds on it.

Hard to believe that makes me that much of an outlier; maybe they are just not joining the thread.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

I think you're mixing up one thing. I don't think either French graded trad climbs (I.e. Alpine trad) or the "equivalent sport grade" are some absolute measure, taken from the pure difficulty of the moves (say, in top rope or pinkpointed) but more of a general equivalence of how hard it feels with a standard rack.

I.e. You get to the top and think "that felt about f6b".

This may differ a bit on regularly headpointed/top roped routes. Most trad, especially alpine never gets top roped. (of we ignore the parochial backwater of the peak district...)

Shit, what's my life come to....Grade debates on UKC, right back to real life! 

In reply to Alasdair Fulton:

Judging by how people were saying RW is 6b+ on the other thread I'd guess this wasn't quite true and that we often use the "if this was top roped" method of equivalence. Because I'm sure to lead RW it would "feel" much harder than 6b+.

Which is why rockfax has grade equivalence and also a colour coding for "similar difficulty"

Edit: I'd not even thought about French graded and UIAA graded trad climbs and how that would affect the "grade"

Edit edit: it's the middle of winter and the weather is kack, what else better do we have to do haha

In reply to Alasdair Fulton: If we can't decide on what grades actually mean this is going to be a tough discussion

So is the discussion really who climbs trad at their top rope/Sport limit , and what grades do you have in hand?

In reply to Robert Durran:

 

I disagree. For lots of good trad climbers I would think their hardest trad onsights might only be a + grade less than than their hardest sport onsights, a letter grade at most.  If it’s more than this I don’t think you’re climbing to your full potential on gear.

In reply to alan moore:

Alan, you are probably the furthest outlying climber I know🙂.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Thanks!

In reply to dinodinosaur:

When I'm in good shape and pluck up the courage to try a (for me) hard trad on-sight, I don't have any grades in hand. The difficulty of the trad on-sight is pretty much the same as the sport on-sight grade.

In reply to deacondeacon:

But if you are right at your sport limit, you are not, pretty much by definition, going to have anything in hand to stop and place gear on the vast majority of routes.

In reply to henwardian:

Ditto

In reply to Robert Durran:

I'm not sure I fully agree with this for a variety of reasons:

- On any routes with good shakeouts/rests, placing gear while shaking out/resting can result in you leaving the rest in a similar shape to if you were on a sport route, it's just that you would be there for longer.

- On things like a slab, the placing of the gear might even be done from no-hands rests where there is no physical impact at all from stopping to place the gear.

- Pulling out the right cam and stuffing it in a crack and immediately clipping it need not take much/any more time and effort than putting a draw in a bolt and clipping it, especially if you can see the crag from the ground and are prepared for what you need to do.

- There are a lot of sport routes where the higher bolts start to be 6 to 8 metres apart and (speaking personally), I overgrip a lot in this situation, making me more pumped than I might be with a trad rack where I could place 3 or more solid runners in that space of climbing.

- There are "trad routes" where all or almost all of the gear is in situ and it isn't too much different from climbing a sport route.

In reply to kingholmesy:

Hmm, I not convinced. The difference between trad and sport is not just the 'gear' - which may or may not be as bomb-proof on trad as in sport - is that sport assumes that you can and have practiced all the moves and possibly even trained for that specific sequence, whereas trad is (traditionally) on-sight, i.e., you have to figure out all the moves as you go (and you only get one go).

You can choose a trad route that's well protected and with no especially awkward gear (as far as the guidebook says) but the on-sight vs. redpoint difference will still be there and is arguably the biggest source of discrepancy between a climbers trad and sport grades.

Of course many people will approach a sport climb with an on-sight mentality (I know I do) or for that matter headpoint a trad route (which I don't), but in the context of this discussion these would be some irrelevant 'hybrid' style rather than pure 'sport' or 'trad'. 

In reply to Robert Durran:

Ive been thinking about this since the discussion began (I'm sitting at home with covid), and in most cases you're right, a sport 'effort' is usually going to be stronger than a trad 'effort' although their us the odd exception, particularly on grit routes which have easy climbing to bomber gear followed by a boulder crux (I appreciate that sounds very specific but routes in this style come up all the time lol).

I've definitely onsighted Trad routes at my limit, but yes, it's rare.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

Depends on the route. If it’s safe enough where it matters, I’m generally happy to go for it at the top of my onsight ability and potentially fall off. I say onsight ability as it doesn’t directly translate to the sport onsight grade. An E5 might only be 6c+ but can feel more like 7a+ due to carrying a heavy rack and hanging around for gear. I can onsight a soft 7a+ on a good day and would generally onsight 6c+ but at E5 which is 6c+ may well spit me off.

Whereas if the route is bold where it matters, I’d want at least one trad grade in hand. If it’s dangerous where it matters, at least two. However I think about this in trad grade terms as it’s more relevant. 

In reply to HeMa:

Speak for yourself, dear friend! Not me - my ideal grade is E3 5b. And hopefully one day I'll find an E4 4c or even better, E5 4c. I live for routes like that although likely seconds for such routes are not at all keen when they get on the route, or the belay, or see the route from below

I thrive on very poorly protected steep slabs or 70-degree walls with poor or no protection and preferably with a lot of loose or very loose rock. (And yes I'm primarily an Avon climber)

PS What's wrong with me. PPS my remaining days on this planet may not be too many!? I really don't care! Climb on!

In reply to profitofdoom:

I've just the route for you It's an E3 5b route in Portishead Quarry called Solus.  It's a bit eliminate but also more independent than it looks from the ground. I put it up in the early 90's.

Al

In reply to Robert Durran:

I think this depends on how you do the conversion between sport and trad grades. Comparing how it actually is vs how it feels. A trad route which actually is the same grade as a sport route will almost certainly feel harder, so in fact you’re rarely comparing like with like. If that makes sense?

In reply to Misha:

Eh, no it doesn't make much sense to me!

I thought we were asking whether people onsight trad routes with as hard physical difficulty of the actual climbing (ie as high French grade if they were bolted) as they onsight sport climbs. I answered this by imagining sport routes at my onsight limit (ie low percentage success, sketching and slapping speculatively, probably totally pumped. And then imagining myself doing the same routes with no bolts but stopping to place gear that I trust enough to push on, and so being even more pumped, and having any chance of success. No chance, by a big margin.

Yes, as I and others have pointed out, there may be very specific types of routes where it might be possible, but I stand by my opinion that, in general, it just isn't going to happen.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

Thanks! That looks perfect. Nice flaky rock I presume, and hope. And a good length

In reply to henwardian:

Really?  Surely if you try to onsight a safe trad route at your onsight fr grade limit you’ll run out of juice placing gear, and if you onsight bold routes you’ll end up falling off and breaking you legs after a couple.  I’d define my onsight limit as a grade I’ve got less than 50% chance of getting up.
  
There’s probably the odd route where the climbing is safe but run out and all the gear is placed from rests (probably a few at Pembroke- point blank?) but they’re going to be pretty niche and you’d still need a good head.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Right, and the reason is that it will actually be harder than the hypothetical sport grade if you were to put bolts in it. A lot more hanging around to place gear, unless it’s very easy to place. So in terms of how it feels you wouldn’t actually be climbing a sport grade equivalent to your top sport onsight - you would effectively be climbing a grade or two harder. That’s not going to work, unless you get lucky and read the route perfectly. 

In reply to Michael Gordon:

Exactly. 

In reply to Andy Gamisou:

I wouldn't say that honey flows particularly fast, but anyway... there is an element of truth in this in that there are many (but not most, IME) trad climbers who prefer to stick to well protected routes in which gear can be placed pretty much at will  - often overhead. They are not comfortable with an enforced runout between bolts when climbing near their physical limit and do not trust a bolt of uncertain vintage as much as a piece of gear they have placed themselves and can see is bomber. I felt much the same myself when I first started sport climbing, despite having reached a reasonably high standard in trad climbing (or climbing, as we used to call it). I would almost never fall on trad (slumping on to the gear, OTOH...). Learning to fall safely and being comfortable with that possibility is an essential part of pushing your sport climbing grade and doesn't come easily to some people.

In reply to dinodinosaur:

Think mine is skewed slightly due to not caring much for sport and predominantly dping trad but 6a plus and e1 are my best on sight grades

Not a fan of facing a fall sport or trad so tend to choose well protected routes to push myself on. 

In reply to gazhbo:

I think so. E5 is supposed to be generally 6c+ to 7a+ and that was all I ever managed to onsight on sport (the only 7b was a 70m Gorge Du Tarn endurofest that doesn't really translate to anything, and it was probably soft).

In reply to henwardian:

So have you onsighted an E5 that would get 7a+ if it were bolted?

In reply to dinodinosaur:

I think this might depend on you favoured method of climbing? E.g. I'm a trad climber at heart, climb soft E5 on a good day but have only managed a couple of 7a+s even on RP. However I've never spent more than a day on a project so no idea what I could get up if I had a higher boredom threshold...

In reply to Robert Durran:

Dunno. Probably starts to get into a grade debate if we are honest. Are we talking Kalymnos 7a+ or Verdon 7a+? Also, grades work best as a measure when you are average height and weight and equally capable of all climbing styles. The further you get away from this generalisation, the more variable they become, so for me they are pretty variable.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Interesting here that I managed Axle Attack 7a+? at the end of last year - took a bit of working but got it first RP. Really struggled to get my head around the fact that a lot of my mates onsighted it as an E5 back in the day...

In reply to Simon King:

I wonder if the number of climbers "willing to push the boat out" has declined over the years. I have no evidence but I do get a sense that this is the case.

Al

In reply to henwardian:

Well lets say soft and not significantly harder of easier if you are tall in your case.

Or better, just ask yourself whether you could have done your hardest sport onsights without the bolts (very boldly or stopping to place good gear or something in between).

In reply to Simon King:

But were your mates doing actual sport climbing back in the day?  I suspect they could have onsighted somewhat harder if they had been. Or was Axle Attack pretty much a clip-up as a trad route anyway (I don't know).

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

"... number of climbers..." is hard to judge, but "proportion of climbers" almost certainly has gone down (IMO).

One indirect measure would be to look at the number of serious falls (hospital/morgue class, perhaps from MRT stats) over the years. Assuming the ability to 'judge your limits'* hasn't changed (not sure why it should**) then there should be some usable correlation between number of climber pushing the boat out and the number of serious falls.

* I'm assuming that 'judging your limits' accounts for improved protection, i.e., it's to do with expectation of consequences rather than expectation of falling.

** The advent of full-time (pro) climbers probably changes thing here, since they are likely to be better at this sort of decision making than a weekend-warrior.

In reply to Simon King:

That’s funny. I thought axle attack was ok, after you I did True Grip (I think a bit after you?) if found it pretty tricky. I wasn’t overly enamoured with any of the gear in the lower wall and where it joins Ressurection the rock is all hollow. I got loads in here but again not in love with it. Then you quest off up that thin ground and get a couple of less than awe inspiring rock 3s (maybe I got a tiny cam?) before a committing move left. I thought it was spookier than RW. At least on RW every time I got to gear I was happy that I’d basically built a belay! That’s how it goes though. One mans cruise is another’s epic! I almost ALWAYS find routes hard if I expect them to be ok and vice versa 

In reply to Simon King:

I’m not saying axle attack would have been easy at e5! But im sure it’s a more reasonable proposition now with nice bolts to clip. I wasn’t exactly hunting for kit on the way up mind