Grading gym routes=not via YDS

tobias bundlewrote:

Counterpoint to this: Practice training is the only time grades matter. 

Outdoors am I trying to have fun, and no one in the world cares that I onsighted 5.11, so therefore: outdoors grades don't matter. (I feel like I just made a Puppy Lovr argument and for that I am sorry.)

I would argue that grades still don’t matter for your training purposes, but rather the level of difficultly. With that said, grades are often how we most easily identify difficulty. So how’s that for a puppy rebuttal reply

You won't believe this, but there are gyms ALL OVER THE WORLD that don't use YDS.

Not Not MP Adminwrote:

I would argue that grades still don’t matter for your training purposes, but rather the level of difficultly. With that said, grades are often how we most easily identify difficulty. So how’s that for a puppy rebuttal reply

I have said this 100 times. Route grades are not the difficulty of the route, they are an approximation of difficulty, whether something is labeled 5.13 or green or a or v10 it doesn’t change the actual route difficulty.

If your trying to climb the hardest thing ever it doesn’t matter if you redpointed 12d and you spend a year trying a 12c. It’s all a guesstimate, instead just try your best.

One of the gyms that I frequented in eastern PA would set up a new route and leave a clip board and sheet of paper at the base of the climb (which they already graded). After a couple of days they would take everyone’s evaluation into account. Nice system!

Grades at gyms in the VB-v4 range and 5.7-5.11aish tend to be geared towards getting new climbers into getting memberships. There is usually a transition from there where grades are geared towards helping climbers become challenging/training type sets to retain membership.  In my experience they are often harder or more consistent indoors in this range than outdoor climbs.  

My favorite system was at the original Denver Bouldering Club, circa 10 years ago. Not sure if they still do this. Problems were graded Easy, Medium, and Hard, with + and - suffixes also. So you'd have M, M+, H-, H, etc; 9 tiers of difficulty total. This was plenty of information to plan and track your session, but avoided the distraction of grade debates and comparing to outdoor grades or to other gyms.  The system was super simple to understand also.

JCMwrote:

My favorite system was at the original Denver Bouldering Club, circa 10 years ago. Not sure if they still do this. Problems were graded Easy, Medium, and Hard, with + and - suffixes also. So you'd have M, M+, H-, H, etc; 9 tiers of difficulty total. This was plenty of information to plan and track your session, but avoided the distraction of grade debates and comparing to outdoor grades or to other gyms.  The system was super simple to understand also.

This sounds suspiciously like the British grading system!

Sam Mwrote:

This sounds suspiciously like the British grading system!

HVS is the holy grail

Princess Puppy Lovrwrote:

I have said this 100 times. Route grades are not the difficulty of the route, they are an approximation of difficulty, whether something is labeled 5.13 or green or a or v10 it doesn’t change the actual route difficulty.

We know Trevor

If your trying to climb the hardest thing ever it doesn’t matter if you redpointed 12d and you spend a year trying a 12c. It’s all a guesstimate subjective, instead just try your best.

Fixed it for ya 

Sam Mwrote:

This sounds suspiciously like the British grading system!

Except in this case E is the easiest.

Double Jwrote:

Ya know what grinds my gears (in the voice of Peter Griffin), not using the YDS in gyms. I recently went to a gym that used route tags that were color coded to represent YDS grade ranges. Now, I am not color blind (but some are!) but it was hard to see the difference between the red routes and the salmon routes(and if I were if a beginner climber I might not know what I was looking at) Yes, I just looked up and could tell the difference between the 5.9 and the 5.11 grades, but it still was stupid.  I climbed the route, then wondered what it was graded (as I was traveling and don’t know the local hard vs. soft scale) as a curiosity and then to scale what I wanted to climb the rest of the evening.
 

Why can’t gyms just use YDS, as we all know what that means, and if you want a range, just call it -,whole number,  and +.  

What set me off is I just saw a scale using 1 to 5 “dots”for difficulty at a different gym.  Why can’t we all join hands and use the same system (and all change to metric while we are at it ;) ) 

(Sorry, board sitting at an airport)  

1/10

I don’t mind the color-coding, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. Locally, there are two gyms that use color-coding, and two gyms that use YDS. I like one color-coded gym the best, but color-coding of the route difficulty has absolutely nothing to do with why I like that gym, or dislike other gyms. It just is one non significant feature of the gym.

The first gym I climbed in had the climbs rated easy, medium, and hard, that’s it. Years later they added +/- to it. For my first-ever lead outside I had absolutely no idea what to get on (it was also my first ever lead, period, bc there was no leading in this gym). I just looked at the rock, and thought, this seems doable. It was.

It wasn’t until I started setting routes in this gym that I was told what the correlation was between YDS and word descriptions. It was quite broad, with “medium-“ corresponding to approximately 10a/c, “medium” approximately 10d/11b, and “medium+“ approximately 11c/12a.

Not Hobo Greg wrote:

Who cares? YDS is for rock, not plastic. 

People who climb indoors as a means to get stronger outside.... .... ..... ?????

Jesse Quandtwrote:

People who climb indoors as a means to get stronger outside.... .... ..... ?????

Most of those people aren’t projecting limit climbs indoors. They’re usually on the spray wall or one of the moon/ tension boards

Wyatt Nwrote:

Most of those people aren’t projecting limit climbs indoors. They’re usually on the spray wall or one of the moon/ tension boards

that's true. But some people think projecting is fun (even indoors). And it's nice to take a break from the heinous spray/tension board training once in a while and project some plastic routes. Especially in the Winter!! Outdoor projecting can be less accessible for newer climbers as well. 

Jesse Quandtwrote:

that's true. But some people think projecting is fun (even indoors). And it's nice to take a break from the heinous spray/tension board training once in a while and project some plastic routes. Especially in the Winter!! Outdoor projecting can be less accessible for newer climbers as well. 

Lol not real rock climbers

Wyatt Nwrote:

Lol not real rock climbers

Ok bro... lol

Wyatt Nwrote:

Lol not real rock climbers

I am not trying to be a dick here but without some attempt to quantify difficulty or duration you cannot effectively train. Randomly climbing stuff is not effective training. Also advocating a single training tool like a moonboard isn't necessarily wise either. You are also discounting the fact moonboards are a relatively new training tool.

I ran in college, if someone wanted to get faster but refused to measure duration, intensity or time; I would assume they are not trying to improve. On contrast if they only wanted to do 2 sets of 8 x 30 seconds on 30- second off 200s because they are "hard," I would also assume they are also not serious about improvement. The moonboard and tension board can be as much about protecting ones ego as a spray wall, an indoor wall, or even the local crag you are at.

There is also no such thing as real rock climbers, just people who climb rocks. 

Princess Puppy Lovrwrote:

There is also no such thing as real rock climbers, just people who climb rocks. 

You said it yourself

Princess Puppy Lovrwrote:

I am not trying to be a dick here but without some attempt to quantify difficulty or duration you cannot effectively train. Randomly climbing stuff is not effective training. Also advocating a single training tool like a moonboard isn't necessarily wise either. You are also discounting the fact moonboards are a relatively new training tool.

I ran in college, if someone wanted to get faster but refused to measure duration, intensity or time; I would assume they are not trying to improve. On contrast if they only wanted to do 2 sets of 8 x 30 seconds on 30- second off 200s because they are "hard," I would also assume they are also not serious about improvement. The moonboard and tension board can be as much about protecting ones ego as a spray wall, an indoor wall, or even the local crag you are at.

There is also no such thing as real rock climbers, just people who climb rocks. 

Them not being serious is your take on it.  May or may not be so.  Also 30 seconds and 200 meters is measurable.  5.9 isnt