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patrick compton
Trad climber
van
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still not harder than OW 5.11
The Locker-Suprema team looks strong. If not them, maybe their daughter?
interspecies copulation of a pimpled Meerkat and a stoned crusty codger?
... you might be on to something
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Ed - I'm a little puzzled by your plot. Are you sure the axes aren't reversed?
I wanted to project the grade to the time it was realized... so I think the axes are chosen correctly for the graph.
When I made it some time ago (or a version of it) I wondered about the origin of the logistics representation. Usually that indicates some limited resource, and it took me a while to realize the resource is people. And then I remembered an argument from Stephan Gould and it all made sense to me...
To climb harder you have to train harder. When you train harder you are subject to injuries. Injuries have many causes, running the gamut from poor training technique to basic biophysical limits, and all these are dependent on the person doing it.
So if you take the "total population" of humans, you might assume that the tolerance for hard training varies. Some people have a very low tolerance, and some have a very high tolerance. We'd assume that on the fringes of very high tolerance there are many fewer people.
That is the limited resource, those people. At some point there are only a few, and pushing even harder eventually there are none. Once that happens, you can't advance the grade anymore... there is no one that has the capability.
Maybe if the population continues to grow you will have the unique freak that happens to find climbing and happens to have the motivation to train... but it will be rare.
The logistics curve takes a look at that... the inflection point is at 5.12, so the average person who finds themselves in climbing has the capacity to tolerate the training required to climb 5.12. That isn't saying that that is easy, it's just saying that it's possible. And that capability isn't something you have your entire life.
Now if the capability to climb harder grades was exponential with time, we'd be up to 5.18a already. We are obviously not even close... but the tricky bit is that the rate to get to the 5.12s did see essentially exponential growth, and since many of us lived through those times, it seems like the current generation is just slacking off... but we're running up against the real limits of climbing, simply, it is increasingly unlikely that there will be someone who can train that hard to do it, not because of the lack of will, but because of the physical limitations of the human body.
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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It would be interesting to see the plot with a few more data points added.
Chilam Balam 9b, 2003
Sharma's routes in Spain
Change, 9b+/15c, 2012
La Dura Dura, 9b+/15c, 2014
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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You've just got to find the climb (or manufacture one) that'll let you do it on.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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added mcreel's climbs... if anything, they're a little late (but I'd say pretty good)
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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Jul 10, 2015 - 01:20am PT
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Nice to see that update, Ed. I suspect that one would get a more accurate forecast by dropping or downweighting the <13a data.
Another limiting factor is just how much time any of the very few people capable of moving standards are willing to invest in climbing a given route. These people are traveling around a lot, and don't usually siege routes.
Also, from what I read, its hard to find a route that will both go, and is harder than the existing hardest route.
For these reasons, and others, and looking at the plot, I believe that the slope is going to get steeper and steeper as we go into the future.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jul 10, 2015 - 03:03pm PT
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Starting to look and feel like baseball statistics, with 98% fantasy league vs 2% participation at higher levels.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Jul 12, 2015 - 12:25am PT
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hey there say, mr E... wow, there IS an 'ed prediction' here... (if i saw that right) :)
hope you get to see more folks chip in, here... :)
me, i do NOT understand these things, :)
have fun, :)
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gunsmoke
Mountain climber
Clackamas, Oregon
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Jul 12, 2015 - 08:27am PT
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What climb represents the data point on the 11+/12- boundary that happened in about 1934?
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Gobi
Trad climber
Orange CA
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Jul 12, 2015 - 10:26am PT
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I think it'll be either Megos or Ondra. However it doesn't seem like Megos works routes for very long and 16a will take a lot of work. Maybe it'll be a mega gifted climber that comes out of nowhere (like Sharma in the 90's). I don't think it'll happen for at least 5 years. I think Action Directe gets done fairly often.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jul 12, 2015 - 05:05pm PT
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(Ed’s orientation is to prediction. That’s one take on reality.)
Why should any of it matter?
Do you keep up with the yearly differences in automobile styles? Isn’t it the experience of a climb that matters? After a while, the constant effort toward achievement becomes a little boring. Look around.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jul 12, 2015 - 05:44pm PT
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It's been a tough year, with too much work and not enough climbing, so this summer is out, but if the workload eases a bit this fall/winter, I could be in pretty good shape by spring. So...
5.16a - who and when?
Me, summer 2016
Laugh if you want, but I three-hung a 12 meter 10b yesterday, and I could, like, totally send that rig with a few more burns. And I'm not even in shape right now. So, yeah, train this winter, and 5.16 next summer!!!!!!!!!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Jul 12, 2015 - 05:52pm PT
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Ghost....I'm with you man, YOU can do it. You just need to improve a letter grade every two weeks for a July 2016 send. Hmmmm......Mari might beat you to it.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Jul 13, 2015 - 01:22pm PT
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Mari might beat you to it.
Well, yeah. But that doesn't count -- she climbs off-widths.
People like Jaybro and Grug and their ilk were effectively climbing 5.16 a decade ago. What we're talking about here is actual climbers, not mutant offwidth freaks.
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RP3
Big Wall climber
Twain Harte
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Jul 13, 2015 - 03:19pm PT
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Fascinating regression, Ed. Thanks for sharing.
A few of the points look strage to me. What was the 5.12a climbed in 1960, the 5.11c climbed in the early 30's and the 5.10d climbed in the teens? Are you including routes that were aided and later freed at those grades? Alternatively, there may be a bit of climbing history I don't know about.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 13, 2015 - 04:13pm PT
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They were kicking ASS along the Elbe River in 1906.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jul 13, 2015 - 04:24pm PT
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What was the 5.12a climbed in 1960 . . .
That would probably be me on the Thimble in 1961. It was a thirty foot pitch but later highball enthusiasts considered it an extended boulder problem. I never thought of it as bouldering, but times change.
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