5.14 does NOT exist

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Majid_S

Mountain climber
Bay Area
Jul 29, 2006 - 12:28pm PT
Ed
At some point in our time, we start to go downhill and our performance will decreased due to our age so could you come up with a chart that shows the relation between age and performance .Can we do the same 5.13 at 70 or no we are back at 5.6. ?
Nate D

climber
San Francisco
Jul 29, 2006 - 04:43pm PT
Dang Ed - I'm not sure I fully understand some of your charts, but I vote that they eventually must be included in the Yosemite Climbing Museum. You listening, Chicken Skinner??

Providing visuals for this rich historical data is fascinating.
Nefarius

Big Wall climber
Fresno, CA
Jul 30, 2006 - 05:13am PT
Ed -- I think your bouldering grade conversion is just a *tad* bit off there... You migh want to do a search and check it out.
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Jul 30, 2006 - 09:22pm PT
From the Fishproducts website...
http://www.fishproducts.com/powerandrubber/grades.html

VB = 5.6-5.9
V0- = 5.10a
V0 = 5.10
V0+ = 5.10+
V1 = 5.11a
V2 = 5.11
V3 = 5.11+
V4 = 5.12a
V5 = 5.12
V6 = 5.12+
V7 = 5.13a
V8 = 5.13
V9 = 5.13+
V10 = 5.14a
V11 = 5.14b
V12 = 5.14c
V13 = 5.14d
V14 = 5.15a
V15 = 5.15b
morphus

Mountain climber
Angleland
Sep 15, 2008 - 01:01pm PT
hey Ed, why does your data stop at 5.12?
have you tried running your model with more recent data?
and what exactly is the generalized logistal curve anyhow? (yellow)



HighDesertDJ

Trad climber
Arid-zona
Sep 15, 2008 - 01:31pm PT
5.13's are not just strings of 5.12 moves, just like 5.10's are not just strings of 5.9 moves. I think the biggest difference is that at the upper end of the climbing scale the ratings are more precise. Two different 5.8's can be markedly different in their difficulty relative to two different 5.12's. If climb A is a little harder than climb B they still might be 5.8. If Climb A is a little harder than Climb B and Climb B is 5.14a, then climb A in 5.14b....and so ratings creep continues upward because every cares how much little bit harder those routes are because they are sooo hard. 1% extra effort is the difference between sending and not sending, while on a 5.8 that likely is not the case.
JEleazarian

Trad climber
Fresno CA
Sep 15, 2008 - 01:32pm PT
In reviewing this discussion and data, I see a basic misunderstanding of the YDS. The YDS never purported to compare different types of climbing. In other words, a 5.10a friciton slab is not necessarily as "difficult" as a 5.10a off-width. Instead, as originally established, the YDS mapped levels of difficulty to specific climbs. Thus, for example, a 5.10a slab might be comparable to the first pitch of Maxine's Wall, and a 5.10a off-width comparable to the last pitch of the Crack of Doom.

If a 5.13 slab has no discernable features, we may have reached the limit of possible slab climbing, and there may be no 5.14 slabs. That does not mean, however that we've reached the limit of, say, crack climbing.

Also, it seems we arrogate an objectivity to ourselves that may be unjustified. When we time a runner, we have an objective standard for a second (yes, I know relativity's effect on time, but I don't think it's relevant here). The difference between 5.14d and 5.15a is subjective and, particularly as the difficulty increases, the number of people who can tell the difference -- by doing routes at both grades -- becomes an exceedingly small sample.

When I boil all this down, I think that we have not seen humanity's harderst climbs yet, so I see no reason not to expect 5.17 at some point -- particularly as long as we tie difficulty to specific routes.
MisterE

Social climber
My Inner Nut
Sep 15, 2008 - 02:30pm PT
look at hard single moves on routes like "The Fly" and "Action Directe", and still say there are only 5.12 moves?
MisterE

Social climber
My Inner Nut
Sep 15, 2008 - 02:34pm PT
Sweet troll, though!
HighDesertDJ

Trad climber
Arid-zona
Sep 15, 2008 - 04:49pm PT
Action Directe is light. It's just a bunch of 5.6 slab moves on overhanging rock.
Mungeclimber

Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 15, 2008 - 05:08pm PT
holy hummus deep digging retro throw back resurrection of a thread!

Thx MisterE. Kinda trollish, but on topic and something I definitely had thought about. What HighdesertDJ says is really insightful on the subject.

"5.13's are not just strings of 5.12 moves, just like 5.10's are not just strings of 5.9 moves. I think the biggest difference is that at the upper end of the climbing scale the ratings are more precise. Two different 5.8's can be markedly different in their difficulty relative to two different 5.12's. If climb A is a little harder than climb B they still might be 5.8. If Climb A is a little harder than Climb B and Climb B is 5.14a, then climb A in 5.14b....and so ratings creep continues upward because every cares how much little bit harder those routes are because they are sooo hard. 1% extra effort is the difference between sending and not sending, while on a 5.8 that likely is not the case."


There is a refinement and compression on the ratings at the high end of the scale. But I'm extrapolating from my own limited experience since I don't climb that hard. But I've been on 5.12 overhanging sport routes and the ones I've been on were not desperate moves. They were hard, but they were hard 5.11 bouldering cruxes.


Remember 5.8 is supposed to be hard, 5.10 super human.

:)

k-man

Gym climber
SCruz
Sep 15, 2008 - 06:40pm PT
He has realized at last that imaginary guitar notes and imaginary vocals exist only in the imagination of The Imaginer . . . and . . . ultimately, who gives a fvck anyway? . . . So . . . So . . . Excuse me . . . Ha ha ha! Mm-mh . . . So . . . Ha ha ha . . . Ha ha ha! Who gives a fvck anyway? So he goes back to his ugly little room and quietly dreams his last imaginary guitar solo . . .
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Sep 16, 2008 - 01:47am PT
oddly, it you take 5.15b done in 2008, the maximum grade drops to 5.16d which will be done sometime in 2030...

not to troll or anything...

The generalized logistics curve lets you set more parameters.... in this case the maximum, the minimum and the inflection point are all setable parameters.

All this really says is that assuming that average elite climber climbs at about 5.12d/5.13a and the standard deviation of climbing difficulty is about 4 letter grades, so close to a gaussian distribution. Sampling the population of elite climbers, you are unlikely to find a climber capable of climbing better than about 5.16d, the climber doesn't exist and will never exist...

harsh, but that's what the numbers say... with this set of assumptions.
MisterE

Social climber
My Inner Nut
Sep 16, 2008 - 02:11am PT
"oddly, it you take 5.15b done in 2008, the maximum grade drops to 5.16d which will be done sometime in 2030..."

Sure it's going to be a HARD .16d ( I just love writing that!), because nobody would consider breaking the 5.17 grade!

lol!
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Sep 16, 2008 - 10:47am PT
Just wait for the Gecko Rubber, DNA technology applied to human potential, and mind-body-spirit discipline-evolution applied to climbing. 5.16d will seem light.

Our vision is always a big stumbling block. We're already doing beyond what was unthinkable 25 years ago. How long before the next unthinkable?

Peace

Karl
Jingy

Social climber
Flatland, Ca
Sep 16, 2008 - 10:55am PT
So we should down-grade every thing 5.14 and above...

Huh....

SOunds good but.. that shite is hard... Really really hard... regardless what you call it.
Eric Beck

Sport climber
Bishop, California
Sep 17, 2008 - 12:31pm PT
I have always suspected that there are physical limits. A while back, maybe 20 years ago I made a small investigation into this in an area where we have good data, track. I plotted the progression of world records agains their dates, with the records converted into velocities, meters/second.

I expected to see a convex curve suggesting an asymptotic approach to a limit. Instead it was a concave curve ( getting steeper ) indicating that the limit was not near. Perhaps someone who has access to current data would be interested in updating this study.
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Sep 17, 2008 - 01:01pm PT
Eric,
my methodology is described up thread... the difficulty is to figure out when a grade is established, and that I did by looking at the time dependence of climbs at grade... the following graph has that:


which results in this table:

If I pick the year in which 10% of the climbs at a grade have been done and say that the grade is "established" then I get the list:

5.4 1939
5.5 1937
5.6 1940
5.7 1948
5.8 1959
5.9 1962
5.10a 1966
5.10b 1968
5.10c 1970
5.10d 1970
5.11a 1974
5.11b 1973
5.11c 1974
5.11d 1978
5.12a 1979
5.12b 1977

This is for Yosemite Valley only, not all climbing.
I don't have enough data for climbs grade 5.12c and higher yet.

This gives the blue line curve, overwhich is laid the exponential growth curve and a logistics curve...


we are surely not on an exponential growth curve anymore, here is the table of the curves:

grade index YV year exponential logistic
5.4 1 1939 1924 1901
5.5 2 1937 1938 1936
5.6 3 1940 1946 1945
5.7 4 1948 1952 1951
5.8 5 1959 1956 1956
5.9 6 1962 1960 1959
5.10a 7 1966 1963 1962
5.10b 8 1968 1966 1965
5.10c 9 1970 1968 1967
5.10d 10 1970 1970 1969
5.11a 11 1974 1972 1971
5.11b 12 1973 1974 1973
5.11c 13 1974 1975 1975
5.11d 14 1978 1977 1977
5.12a 15 1979 1978 1978
5.12b 16 1977 1979 1980
5.12c 17 - 1981 1982
5.12d 18 - 1982 1983
5.13a 19 - 1983 1985
5.13b 20 - 1984 1986
5.13c 21 - 1985 1988
5.13d 22 - 1986 1989
5.14a 23 - 1987 1991
5.14b 24 - 1988 1992
5.14c 25 - 1988 1994
5.14d 26 - 1989 1996
5.15a 27 - 1990 1997
5.15b 28 - 1991 1999
5.15c 29 - 1991 2001
5.15d 30 - 1992 2003
5.16a 31 - 1993 2005
5.16b 32 - 1993 2008
5.16c 33 - 1994 2010
5.16d 34 - 1995 2013
5.17a 35 - 1995 2017
5.17b 36 - 1996 2022
5.17c 37 - 1996 2028
5.17d 38 - 1997 2039

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Sep 17, 2008 - 06:51pm PT
I think it is because a lot of 5.9 FAs when up after that date...
I'm not totally happy with my definition of when the grade was "established" but the definition I offer at least has to do with some statistical threshold.

My first attempt was to use the first reported instance of a grade in the climbing magazines, but that has the obvious problem that a consensus grade had not been established.

I could have used 50% as the threshold, but that seems rather late. Less than 10% suffers from statistical noise.

Any other quantitative definition could be used.

As for Excel, it is merely a tool, one I use a lot for management, that is simple to use for these musing too. I could use some more sophisticated tools (like Root, or IDL but I tired at keeping up with the continuous updating and revisions for the amount of time I use them)...
HighDesertDJ

Trad climber
Arid-zona
Sep 17, 2008 - 08:49pm PT
Wes- I'm pretty sure that people realized that a lot of the 11+'s were sandbagged and so someone just said screw it, this is .12b its way harder than any 11+ I've done. After that people upgraded a lot of the ratings.
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