Rope Solo Grades?

I want to get into rope soloing, but I was wondering if I could climb the same grade solo as I can with a regular belayer. 

If I climb 5.12, would soloing make me unable to climb other 5.12s, or could I climb just as hard as with a belayer?

You can definitely climb at the same grade rope solo, you just really have to have your systems dialed in and trust it! 

You can rope solo right at your limit. I actually enjoy it most right at my limit because I can work moves as long as I want without feeling bad for my belayer. Just make sure you have your system dialed and you are comfortable escaping your system.

Rope soloists who can do this are rare, but they exist. The term redpoint rope soloist is beginning to be used to refer to someone who is as willing to take falls solo as they are partnered. 

Brent Barghan is an impressive redpoint rope soloist and has a cool blog with two excellent posts on the subject. 

I would say after 50 pitches of rope soloing or so it starts to make sense to start working towards being a redpoint rope soloist, but you want managing the live and dead ropes to be automatic and have a dialed rig and complete system before you start really going for it. 

Wiled Horse wrote:

Ricky PM sent

Not seeing anything for some reason. 

Toprope solo: absolutely, you can climb just as hard

Lead Rope Solo: meh, not really.   Depending on your system, you may have the whole weight of the rope on you (like stacked in a backpack).  Managing the cache loop and making clips is fiddly.  You don't want to be taking frequent falls, as the static belay makes for really hard catches.  I guess it's possible, but not recommended. 

+1 for Brent and his website, he has a lot of really good info, and sells some cool widgets that he designed for the specific niche of redpoint rope soloing

Sam Skovgaardwrote:

Toprope solo: absolutely, you can climb just as hard

Lead Rope Solo: meh, not really.   Depending on your system, you may have the whole weight of the rope on you (like stacked in a backpack).  Managing the cache loop and making clips is fiddly.  You don't want to be taking frequent falls, as the static belay makes for really hard catches.  I guess it's possible, but not recommended. 

Have you tried Beal ropes? I took a somewhat high factor fall once and it wasn't uncomfortable at all. 

Have you read Brent's Blog? It addresses your concerns pretty well and is by a guy who brings some pretty major receipts. Like who the fuck else is doing anything else like this guy at that level? Pete Whittaker, who else? 

Dude has clever and innovative solutions to problems which has created an unusually simple system which lowers the amount of rope shenanigans you have to do mid lead. 

Brent Barghan and his Avant Climbing company is making it a much more enjoyable time to be a rope soloist. We finally have a store to get backfeed stoppers now, for example! 

Also, he's getting people off of device managed cache loops which are of the devil and such an obvious hindrance to being able to climb anywhere remotely near your max grade that I don't understand why anyone uses it. You have a lot of rope shenanigans to do while leading LRS and the most time consuming one is managing the cache loop by far. Adding a device to manage the cache loop is somewhere in the realm of 3-5x as slow I'd wager than the backpack method or Brent's precache method. 

Personally I think why no one does redpoint rope soloing isn't because it's that hard to get that proficient, people just usually learn they don't really like rope soloing and then end up only doing it a few times a year and then wonder how anyone can have such a dialed rig and be that proficient. But nutters like Joseph Healy exist, and that dude climbs hundreds of pitches of 5.10-5.11 trad every year on the sketchiest LRS system I know in use today. That dudes just out there all the time sending the shit and taking falls regularly (on a device that isn't guaranteed to catch you in certain situations with no backups whatsoever). 

But perhaps this is the much larger reason: I've dabbled in redpoint rope soloing and what I've learned is it's really fucking scary. I think people who put in the time to get really proficient dabble in pushing their limits and realize it's the hidden last boss of getting comfortable taking falls in climbing and decide they like having a belayer a whole lot. 

That's cool, using rope soloing as a way to cover easy terrain is really incredibly fun. Same for aid. I can see why so many people would limit themselves to those categories of climbing. Climbing free at a level that is very hard for me rope solo gave me a level of heebie jeebies I was previously unfamiliar with. 

Would love to push through one day and get really comfortable taking LRS falls on safe routes, but I think a lot of people never push through that like where I'm at now and likely to be at for a very long time. 

IME the systems are cumbersome enough, even when working very smoothly, that I drop a couple of letter grades, at least.  I think those who can get comfortable enough with LRS to climb at the same level as with a belay are rare indeed.

The biggest pain for me is the cache loop, of course.  BB's loop dump method is simple and safe-ish, but starting a 30m pitch with 4+ big loops dangling from my side is pretty annoying and heavy.  I find using a MT is much smoother, as at least then the weight doesn't become a big issue until higher on the pitch, and I can hang it from my haul loop, which is more comfortable.  Ofc then there's no backup for the primary device (GG or Mudo, in my case), so I only do it that way when I'm confident I'm not going to fall.

I also doubt I'll ever get truly comfortable with it, but it's fun to be able to do easier stuff alone, and often I'll set up a TR on something hard afterward and work on that, so I also get in a workout.

Lots of discussion when lead vs TR solo hasn't even been established.

Top Rope Solo: climb harder than I do on lead. Probably a letter grade more,

Lead Rope Solo:  minus one number grade or so.