Trends in Climbing: Prediction Thread

A continuous belt wall at gyms with programmable auto changing holds so that you can  climb the nose without tying in or getting more than 10’ off the mat. 

John Gill wrote:

I've wondered about speed climbing. It's fun to watch, like twenty foot rope-climbing was in gymnastics meets years ago. The rope climb was dropped in the Olympics in the 1930s and died out in the USA in the mid 1960s, primarily because it was not an artistic gymnastic event. But spectators loved it. I loved it as a gymnast. I've thought, why doesn't the climbing community bring it back; after all, it is a climbing activity?

One reason: It's damned hard. Another reason, an extension of the first, it's an event where women cannot compete with men on the same apparatus. Rope climbing has made a comeback in countries like the Czech Republic, and records are being kept. 

On the common climbing wall the top women's time is 6.96 seconds, while the top men's  time is 5.20 seconds. Not a great difference, relatively speaking. But in the twenty foot rope climb, the unbeaten men's record (from the 1950s) is 2.8 seconds, while the women's fastest time is 10.6 seconds. But then how many women have done the 20' climb? Perhaps that time could be substantially reduced? What do you think? 

I'm a female who greatly enjoyed simply climbing a rope....way back when every gym at every school had a rope or two hanging there. That was about 100 pounds ago though, lol! A kid, truly!

Think about how crazy strong women (and girls) are now, for their weight. Strength/weight ratio matters, going up a rope. It's also a CrossFit/Ninja thing now. 

My predictions?

Climbing as a full fledged fitness activity, fully removed from outside stuff. And, all that entails to keep it bringing traffic in the door. More crossover with aerial stuff, etc. VR, maybe even in home. 

Captain Kirk's belay boots, lol! 

Speed climbing with rapidly changing routes. Side by side setting for people to race for the fun of it. Put highball bouldering over a pool, like the comp at SLC, using the pool for I forget what as a landing zone in their olympics.

"Ice" climbing competitions, indoors, with lots more spectators.

Me, climbing when I'm a centenarian. How many bionics will disqualify future competitors???

You people have paltry imaginations.

;-)

Climber Pampers. You just drop yer deuce mid crux. Very LNT. Crag poo issues solved by the future. So long as you pack them out…

Stephen L wrote:

Climber Pampers. You just drop yer deuce mid crux. Very LNT. Crag poo issues solved by the future. So long as you pack them out…

Just make sure they seal securely in squeeze chimneys ...

I think Tradiban's homeschooled kids will run MP.

Governmental agencies will ban soloing. Not because gumbies watch Free Solo and start having accidents, but because climbing grows so much that the number of people soloing also increases, leading to more casualties (on moderate terrain, as is tradition).

And hopefully, gyms introduce more parkour features that can't be replicated outdoors, keeping gymbies indoors.

Indoor and sport climbing become like road cycling. Full of insecure, balding forty-year-olds trying to reassert their virility by conspicuous consumption and comparison.

New technology such as >100% THC strains and marijuana-enema-underwear make bouldering that much better.

More climbing movies. No, they will not be better than Vertical Limit.

In fifty years, the MSM will continue to butcher the difference between free climbing and free soloing.

F r i t z wrote:

I think Tradiban's homeschooled kids will run MP.

Prediction: Tradiban wins again and again and again!

Indoor and sport climbing become like road cycling. Full of insecure, balding forty-year-olds trying to reassert their virility by conspicuous consumption and comparison.

Coming from cycling and seeing that transition occur this is what I fear most. In cycling if they turns into your wheel and they hit the pavement no big deal, in climbing they pull off a bunch of loose blocks and kill some people.

Certified Rock Texturer will become a new career.

Certified Rock Texturer will become a new career.

Hah, its good to live long enough to see your predictions come true!

https://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/on-the-new-jameson-canyon-caltrans-goes-for-the-natural-look/article_3ccdfacc-f1b1-5b6c-af3b-0d524a253366.html

With trowels, knives, brushes and lots of imagination, workers have been etching granite-like features this week into the new retaining walls along Jameson Canyon/Highway 12, turning miles of concrete into natural-looking stone.

The crews create ridges and cracks in fresh layers of concrete to give the man-made material a natural “fractured granite” appearance. This cosmetic work may be completed next week, as Caltrans comes close to wrapping up the $130 million widening of Jameson Canyon after two years of construction.

“They’re artists,” Elias Moussa, a Caltrans senior transportation engineer, said during a tour of the project Wednesday.

To look natural, the carvings cannot look repetitive, officials said. “You’re trying to duplicate nature. It’s not easy,” said Todd Presho, vice president of Boulderscape, as a crew of five worked along a 20-foot-tall retaining wall that separates the eastbound and westbound lanes near the Napa-Solano county line.

The Boulderscape sculptors expect are carving some 200,000 square feet of retaining walls along the canyon, mostly in Solano County. The crews complete more than 100 yards of wall per day.

John Gill wrote

“On the common climbing wall the top women's time is 6.96 seconds, while the top men's  time is 5.20 seconds. Not a great difference, relatively speaking. But in the twenty foot rope climb, the unbeaten men's record (from the 1950s) is 2.8 seconds, while the women's fastest time is 10.6 seconds. But then how many women have done the 20' climb? Perhaps that time could be substantially reduced? What do you think?”

I would say the difference in the male/female climbing wall times is not great relative to the disparity between men and women on the rope climb in 1958, but that’s a huge difference compared to the 10% average disparity between men and women across the spectrum of athletic competitions.

It seems like young, modern climbing women have basically none of the societal norms women formerly had workIng against them where raw athletic ability is concerned. A feminist’s opinion on that would be interesting.  

An analysis of why speed climbing shows a greater difference between male and female climbers than sport climbing or bouldering seems to, would also be interesting.

I mentioned the idea of weight classes in climbing competitions, as they have in various other athletic competitions. I think strength to weight ratio is obviously important in climbing, and gets talked about a lot, but body weight to hold size ratio is also a big factor that seems to be ignored in competitions.

On plastic, where there are basically no choices of holds, particularly compared to smearing texture for foothold options on real rock, hold size is a bigger factor. And basically all competition climbing is on plastic.

Weight classes would roughly create body size classes, lighter climbers tending to be smaller, and the way a climber fits the hold positions on moves on plastic can change the effective difficulty greatly at times. This aspect of weight classes might further level the playing field.

Here’s a prediction - men and women will never regularly compete against each other in a formal climbing competition

Competitive hangboarding will become an olympic sport

Lynn Hill when on Hazel Findlay's podcast talked about the idea of climbing comps being by height class, not gender. Which I found an interesting concept.

Kevin Worrall wrote:

Here’s a prediction - men and women will never regularly compete against each other in a formal climbing competition

I always assumed as competitive climbing got more gymnastic, it was going to be 12 year old girls at the top of the sport. Cause, ya know, like gymnastics. But apparently I was wrong, it's actually late teen boys that have the best grip strength/weight ratios. (Insert joke here about teenage boys practicing grip strength.) And maybe the whole thing about tween girls in gymnastics was more BS than physiology anyway? 

There's still the squared-cubed law (the fact that chipmunks climb anything and elephants can't even jump). So maybe the greatest comp climbers will be 18 year old males that look like jockeys? I guess it depends on how reach-y vs parkour-y the setting trends toward.

That was a worthwhile 30 seconds of entertainment.

Gyms stop using auto belays. 

That creates a secondary market for cheap auto belays. 

They are quickly snatched up by top rope solo-ers. 

It then becomes commonplace for auto belays to be seen at outdoor crags.

My logic is undeniable.

Todd Berlier wrote:

i predict that climbing has almost reached its pinnacle in popularity. by 2029 numbers of new climbers will dramatically decrease and be outlawed due to a tragic accident at the 2028 Olympics leading to closure of all public climbing. except bouldering which at first will exist as an underground activity, more to come on our intrepid boulderers.

also the social democratic party will elect our next president after trump supporters try to start a civil war during the 2028 election forcing a second election day where all Republicans that didn't die in the uprising and after the double delta variant emerges in missouri due failure to wear masks and not getting vaccinated refuse to vote. in order to keep the coast states safe a wall will be built as middle america collapses into a third world country due to power outages and lack of medical care cause by global warming and refusing to adopt socialized medicine which all coasts states have. 

our food supply is maintained within the walled states of Colorado, kansas and south dakota (fruit and rice will still be in california--but all meat production will end from the Vegan Act of 2027 (a contributing factor in the attempted Civil war)) and maintained by robots and drones.

oh and back to the boulderers. they will be worshipped and praised as after 6 years of living underground in militia type camps they will stop an attempted uprising when the remnants of middle America attempt another coup. 

a boulderer will be president at each subsequent election until 2120.

boulderers will be revered and worshipped much like movie stars are today.

eta: misspelled words and some clarity

Obviously this exactly how it will go down followed by a big earthquake, when everything east of the San Andres Fault  falls into the Atlantic. 

Greg R wrote:

Obviously this exactly how it will go down followed by a big earthquake, when everything east of the San Andres Fault  falls into the Atlantic. 

Anyone remember the Boulder California poster that showed people surfing and sailing at the base of the flatirons?

Daniel Chode Rider wrote:

That was a worthwhile 30 seconds of entertainment.

Wow, speed reader!

Rocrates wrote:

Wow, speed reader!

Not just at reading; ask your mom about how fast I was last night.

Daniel Chode Rider wrote:

Not just at reading; ask your mom about how fast I was last night.

Nothing to be proud of. When you move out of your Mom's basement you'll realize that.

Parachute Adams wrote:

Nothing to be proud of. When you move out of your Mom's basement you'll realize that.

Yeah...he didn't think that one through, lol!

I had to be fast so I could get to the rest of your moms as well