What does a Vxx grade tell you that a 5.xx grade doesn't?

One thing everyone should be able to agree on is that the YDS is based on the single hardest move. That's a fact. YDS takes out the subjective factors in climbing like fear and pump that's different to everybody. What you are left with is the maximum effort you'll have to work.

Conveniently, the system is split up between 4 subsets (a, b, c, d) which one could translate to 0-25%, 26-50%, 51-75% and 76-100%. So let's say there is this .12c. The hardest single move is a .12. There are absolutely 0 moves harder than .12. The "c" designates frequency of the moves, so you could figure 51-75% of the moves on the route are of grade .12 . And there you go, you have a pretty good idea of what the route will feel like.

Reductive, but…

V-scale is how hard it is.

YDS is how hard it feels.

Don Ferris wrote:One thing everyone should be able to agree on is that the YDS is based on the single hardest move. That's a fact. YDS takes out the subjective factors in climbing like fear and pump that's different to everybody. What you are left with is the maximum effort you'll have to work. Conveniently, the system is split up between 4 subsets (a, b, c, d) which one could translate to 0-25%, 26-50%, 51-75% and 76-100%. So let's say there is this .12c. The hardest single move is a .12. There are absolutely 0 moves harder than .12. The "c" designates frequency of the moves, so you could figure 51-75% of the moves on the route are of grade .12 . And there you go, you have a pretty good idea of what the route will feel like.

a fact? i'm assuming you haven't spent much time climbing at endurance dominated areas....

Don Ferris wrote:One thing everyone should be able to agree on is that the YDS is based on the single hardest move. That's a fact. YDS takes out the subjective factors in climbing like fear and pump that's different to everybody. What you are left with is the maximum effort you'll have to work. Conveniently, the system is split up between 4 subsets (a, b, c, d) which one could translate to 0-25%, 26-50%, 51-75% and 76-100%. So let's say there is this .12c. The hardest single move is a .12. There are absolutely 0 moves harder than .12. The "c" designates frequency of the moves, so you could figure 51-75% of the moves on the route are of grade .12 . And there you go, you have a pretty good idea of what the route will feel like.

This is not true, and is frankly a bastardization of the grading system. Bridwell called this out in 1973 as an incorrect viewpoint. The only reason anyone ever saw it as remotely true is a deliberate desire to mislead.

"The most common motivation behind downrating is protection of the downrater's
self-image. Avoid the ridicule of having one's climb downrated. Downrate first and
be safe. This type of game causes its most dedicated players to fool even
themselves. Move rating is an outgrowth of this syndrome. Breaking a pitch into
individual moves and rating the pitch by the hardest move is nonsense. A hundred
foot lieback with no moves over 5.9, but none under 5.8, and with no place to
rest, is not a 5.9 pitch!" From - home.comcast.net/%7Ee.harto…

As far as your interpretation of the a,b,c, and d grades goes, you're even further from the truth. Those are a Bridwell invention and purposefully designed to describe the overall difficulty of the pitch, not the number of hard moves. As a matter of fact, that seems like something that was made up out of whole cloth and was never remotely true. The difference between 5.12a and 5.12b could be either harder individual moves or more moves of the same intensity or anything in between.

Don Ferris wrote:One thing everyone should be able to agree on is that the YDS is based on the single hardest move. That's a fact. YDS takes out the subjective factors in climbing like fear and pump that's different to everybody. What you are left with is the maximum effort you'll have to work. Conveniently, the system is split up between 4 subsets (a, b, c, d) which one could translate to 0-25%, 26-50%, 51-75% and 76-100%. So let's say there is this .12c. The hardest single move is a .12. There are absolutely 0 moves harder than .12. The "c" designates frequency of the moves, so you could figure 51-75% of the moves on the route are of grade .12 . And there you go, you have a pretty good idea of what the route will feel like.

There is nothing factual in your statements.

Don Ferris wrote:Conveniently, the system is split up between 4 subsets (a, b, c, d) which one could translate to 0-25%, 26-50%, 51-75% and 76-100%. So let's say there is this .12c. The hardest single move is a .12. There are absolutely 0 moves harder than .12. The "c" designates frequency of the moves, so you could figure 51-75% of the moves on the route are of grade .12 . And there you go, you have a pretty good idea of what the route will feel like.

That would be an astonishingly precise system of grading. Unfortunately, it's also completely incorrect.

Don Ferris wrote:One thing everyone should be able to agree on is that the YDS is based on the single hardest move. That's a fact. YDS takes out the subjective factors in climbing like fear and pump that's different to everybody. What you are left with is the maximum effort you'll have to work. Conveniently, the system is split up between 4 subsets (a, b, c, d) which one could translate to 0-25%, 26-50%, 51-75% and 76-100%. So let's say there is this .12c. The hardest single move is a .12. There are absolutely 0 moves harder than .12. The "c" designates frequency of the moves, so you could figure 51-75% of the moves on the route are of grade .12 . And there you go, you have a pretty good idea of what the route will feel like.

That is incorrect.

Just to keep the laughs in this thread rolling, I was once told in a very matter of fact tone that a boulder problem that was all v2 moves to a v6 crux move to a v2 exit couldn't be harder than v4. I was really too astonished to say anything except, "That is the least correct statement I have ever heard."

Southern California is an interesting place.

Don Ferris wrote:One thing everyone should be able to agree on is that the YDS is based on the single hardest move.

This is, as like 15 people have said already in this thread, completely incorrect, useless, and irrelevant to modern climbing. A more interesting question, however, if how this "rating by the hardest move" idea came about, and why people still cling to it decades after it became obsolete.

I have a hypothesis that I think to be true, but I lack the evidence to prove it. Recall that the YDS/TDS is an offshoot of the Sierra Club's 1st Class- 6th Class system for rating alpine climbs in the High Sierra. The decimal system was just a modification for describing the various shades of 5th class. Anyway, when the Sierra Club system was first being developed, if was mostly used to rate alpine ramble-scrambles. The question was whether these routes should be rated by their average difficulty (i.e. the climbing that you will mostly do on that route), or by the hardest section. Lets say you have a high Sierra ridge that contains 2000 feet of 3rd class, with one very short section of low 5th class. Do you call the climb 3rd class (since that is what it is, for the most part) or do you call it 5th class based on that one crux step? The Sierra club system designated that you rate by the hardest single move, such that you could rate the route no lower than that hardest move. Hence, that ridge would be called 5th class. Pump/endurance was not a factor, since the idea of long pumpy endurance pitches was decades in the future. This system was created for differentiating 4th class from 5.4, not for differentiating 5.12b from 5.12c. As climbing standards rose, the idea of rating by the hardest move stuck around for decades, even after it started to not make sense. Once people starting climbing things hard enough that forearm endurance was a factor, rating by the hardest move started to artificially depress the rating below the actual difficulty of the climb, which was problematic for various reasons. Eventually, the idea phased out, but some people still cling to it, as an orthodox ideal. It is an outdated remnant from the past.

I'd be interested if anyone has any thoughts to support/refute this hypothesis.

Addendum: Shotwell's post above me is an interesting example of the exact same debate from the early Sierra Club rating system, except in this case being applied (in a very misguided fashion) to the modern V-scale. Funny how some people never learn, and some stupid ideas never die.

I would make a comment here, but I don't have time to weigh in on whether or not I have time to weigh in on these debates.

Monomaniac wrote:I would make a comment here, but I don't have time to weigh in on whether or not I have time to weigh in on these debates.

LOL The all knowing JLP must be respected

Ahh i'm literally tearing up from laughter after reading some of these last posts on this thread.