Differences in grades

Is the difference in difficulty between an .11c and .11d equal to the difference between a .8 and .9? Or is there a 1/4 difference in difficulty between, say, a .13b and .13c when compared a .10a and .11a?

I know, it's all about having fun and grades are unimportant, blah, blah, blah. I'm only questioning the theory of the scale structure.

BackCountry wrote:Is the difference in difficulty between an .11c and .11d equal to the difference between a .8 and .9?

yes... well that's the idea anyways. obviously it may not always feel like that

The difference between 11C and 11D is .37692%
Jeez
You haven't read the book!?!

BackCountry wrote:Is the difference in difficulty between an .11c and .11d equal to the difference between a .8 and .9? Or is there a 1/4 difference in difficulty between, say, a .13b and .13c when compared a .10a and .11a?

That would mean an exponential growth in difficulty as you did the grades! It doesn't work that way, even if it sometimes feels like it.

Mike Lane wrote:The difference between 11C and 11D is .37692% Jeez You haven't read the book!?!

Unless 11c is your absolute limit. In which case it's 150% difference.

Seriously, it has a lot to do with your frame of reference. I can't tell the difference between 14a and 14b. (Both are 5.TFH). And I'm convinced that a lot of 5.12 climbers out there can't tell 5.4 from 5.5. But a first day climber certainly can.

BackCountry wrote:Is the difference in difficulty between an .11c and .11d equal to the difference between a .8 and .9? Or is there a 1/4 difference in difficulty between, say, a .13b and .13c when compared a .10a and .11a? I know, it's all about having fun and grades are unimportant, blah, blah, blah. I'm only questioning the theory of the scale structure.

No its not. The grading scale is not linear. The difficulty increase between 5.11a and 5.11b is greater than it is from 5.8 to 5.9. As you climb harder you will find it will take increasingly longer to redpoint the next harder grade as you move along. Think about it, how often do you see 5.8/9's? Or 5.8+? Probably not often. But I regularly see 5.12c/d and 5.13a/b and so on and so forth. The reason being the gap between the grades becomes larger and thus the gap starts to become large enough that sub grades have a use. You probably wouldn’t notice much between a 5.8 and 5.8+.

I see 5.8+ or 5.9+ all the time. I imagine part of the reason for the 5.11b/c grades is because those climbs don't get done nearly as often as the 5.8 or 5.9, may be relatively new, and hence the appropriate grade hasn't been honed in on yet. My understanding was that the idea is that the grading system was linear. Certainly that has been my experience (difference between a 5.7 and 5.8 is roughly the same as between a 10a and 10b). If anything, there seems to be a compression at the higher end. 5.11a doesn't feel nearly as different from 5.10a compared to the difference between 5.5 and 5.9.

Yes, Jason, the grading system feels linear. Of course this is a dead giveaway that it is really logarithmic. Whenever human perception is involved, a scale of intensity which feels linear is almost certainly logarithmic. Examples include the intensities of light and sound (decibels).

Gunkiemike wrote: Seriously, it has a lot to do with your frame of reference. I can't tell the difference between 14a and 14b. (Both are 5.TFH). And I'm convinced that a lot of 5.12 climbers out there can't tell 5.4 from 5.5. But a first day climber certainly can.

This is the most practical advice so far. I've found that jumping letter grades once I started climbing 5.10/5.11 was about as difficult as jumping number grades in the lower levels.

Keep in mind that grades are a not based on math, they are based on human perception. There is no rule saying that a move that requires x amount of grip strength is 5.10 and 1.3x is 5.10b, etc.

Evan Horvath aka Evan1984 wrote:Keep in mind that grades are a not based on math, they are based on human perception.

Exactly.

I cannot tell the differnce between a 5.10a or a 5.10b, but I can tell the difference between 5.8 and 5.9. I feel that overall there is a smaller jump between a letter grade, but in the end they are all subjective. I am agreeing with human perception gradeing. Just keep climbing and you will aquire your own perception of how hard something is. I think 11d is harder than 12a, just saying.

bradyk wrote:I think 11d is harder than 12a, just saying.

Just like 9+ is harder than 10a.

I thought 9+ was harder than 11b? Maybe that is just what I overheard when my friend was climbing offwidth last week...

Seriously though, IMHO, it feels like the grades get more compressed the higher you go.

Erik W wrote: Just like 9+ is harder than 10a.

I have no idea where I heard or read this but I thought the numbers were the general climbing grade and then when it got to the letters it was dependent on how many moves are required at that level. For example a 5.9 climb will be 5.9 moves the entire way up or it could just have one. But a 5.13a may only have one 5.13 move on the whole climb filled in with 5.10 or 5.11 climbing, while a 5.13c will have maybe 3 or 4 5.13 moves or more on the pitch, maybe in a row. I can climb 5.10a because I can make one or two 5.10 moves but after that I'm spent. I can't make it up 5.10c not always because the moves are too hard, but I can't do that many hard moves in one climb. I see the + and - on the lower grades as meaning kinda the same thing, sustained difficulty or just a few hard moves at the grade.
Or you could be climbing a spliter crack and then it refers to the size of the crack which means nothing till you compare it to the size of your hand. In the same day I gave up on a 5.9 and climbed a 5.12 instead.
Or you could be leading, in which case a 5.8 I've cruised up on top rope suddenly feels like a 5.11.

If I can do the next grade up, it is linear. If I can't , it's exponential.

Rockwood wrote:I have no idea where I heard or read this but I thought the numbers were the general climbing grade and then when it got to the letters it was dependent on how many moves are required at that level. For example a 5.9 climb will be 5.9 moves the entire way up or it could just have one. But a 5.13a may only have one 5.13 move on the whole climb filled in with 5.10 or 5.11 climbing, while a 5.13c will have maybe 3 or 4 5.13 moves or more on the pitch, maybe in a row. I can climb 5.10a because I can make one or two 5.10 moves but after that I'm spent. I can't make it up 5.10c not always because the moves are too hard, but I can't do that many hard moves in one climb. I see the + and - on the lower grades as meaning kinda the same thing, sustained difficulty or just a few hard moves at the grade. Or you could be climbing a spliter crack and then it refers to the size of the crack which means nothing till you compare it to the size of your hand. In the same day I gave up on a 5.9 and climbed a 5.12 instead. Or you could be leading, in which case a 5.8 I've cruised up on top rope suddenly feels like a 5.11.

That is incorrect.

Monomaniac wrote: That is incorrect.

Though strangely logical, which means it has no place in a discussion of grades.

Can the grade be linear but the difficulty exponential?

I can't tell a difference between bench pressing 20 and 25lbs, but I can tell a difference between benching 250 and 255 lbs.

I can't tell a difference between running a 9 minute and 9:30 mile, but I can tell a difference between a 6 and 6:30 mile.

In either example, the linearity of measurement remains the same, but the difficulty increases exponentially. Just throwing that out there.

Anything less than 5.15 is too easy for me so I really can't help you.

74.87% of the people in this thread are thinking way too hard on this.

Rockwood wrote:I have no idea where I heard or read this but I thought the numbers were the general climbing grade and then when it got to the letters it was dependent on how many moves are required at that level. For example a 5.9 climb will be 5.9 moves the entire way up or it could just have one. But a 5.13a may only have one 5.13 move on the whole climb filled in with 5.10 or 5.11 climbing, while a 5.13c will have maybe 3 or 4 5.13 moves or more on the pitch, maybe in a row. I can climb 5.10a because I can make one or two 5.10 moves but after that I'm spent. I can't make it up 5.10c not always because the moves are too hard, but I can't do that many hard moves in one climb. I see the + and - on the lower grades as meaning kinda the same thing, sustained difficulty or just a few hard moves at the grade.

Katie, did you get that from Jessica? She said almost the exact same thing to me once. Weird.