My Community

All of the above can be translated into bouldering. You take a highball problem with a bad landing. One person says the risk is unjustifiable and advocates building and using a platform, another says that the risk is as much a part of the boulder problem as anything else and chooses to do without the aid of a platform. Something similar(-ish) did occur a couple of seasons back up north.

The point is still valid. One can choose to limit oneself to a specific approach but you'd be a wiser and better climber to at least acknowledge the existence and the validity of the others.

There was a time when top roping, practice, pre-inspection and even the use of chalk or getting beta never mind the use of pads was looked on as pure cowardice and downright cheating. Ah the good old days... 

Sé O'Hanlon was just on to me about adding an ePub export extension to the climbing.ie wiki. Of course the info in the routes database is a lot more textual and an order of magnitude less images than the bouldering guide. I'm not familiar with ePub either but I promised Sé I'd take a look - well on a Samsung Galaxy S anyway.

Dave, I'd watermark or password lock the pdf with the name or email address of the purchaser.

That way if its passed on to a third party there is the double deterrent i.e. the identity of the person passing it on can be obtained and the person receiving can be embarrassed i.e. "you cheap skanky fecker would you not even pay the man €5 to get your own!!!"

Not real security but social ostracisation might induce fair play.

S

Whats the best/cheapest bouldering pad? and where to buy in Ireland?

Don't tell me you're still using that feckin doormat you had from years back. Get a Red Chilli pad, very nice for the larger gentleman or for the not so large but taking a mahoosive drop. Take a loan of mine. Its in my lockup and hasn't seen much action lately.

Folks seem to have got caught on trad grades. I was also referring to sports routes. Just as many grading divisions to choose from etc.

This has gone all a bit odd if you don't mind me saying so...

I really fail to see whats so hard about grading boulders in Ireland. Or why folks get so precious about it. Why is it different to how problems are graded in Wales, Peak, Lakes, Font etc? What is it different to grading climbs? All the same arguments pro and con exist but somehow we just get on with it and come up with a result. Every argument that you could possibly come up with has its equivalent in trad and sports climbing and yes there are folks who say its all about the line, feck the grade and there are those for whom the number is a personal achievement. Good luck to them all and why not.

I'm reasonably sure I could register on bleau.info, claim an ascent of Karma and offer a grade as a repeater. But I won't....ye need to have a bit more faith in the community. There are far less eejits out there to skew the curve than you might expect.

That apple and oranges argument doesn't wash. There are E4 slabs, overhangs, cracks and corners. No two climbs are alike and the grade is arrived at by exactly the method it should i.e. proferred opinions, comparison, experience, consensus and time.

I don't think anyone is looking for 100% accuracy. Even with routes you hear expression like "easy tick", "soft for the grade" or "value for money". But they are in and around the grade give or take. Most folks can live with the paradox.

I can't see the grade of popular problems changing much. However you could well do with the input for stuff that doesn't get repeated so often. Why discourage it?

We're not talking about democracy here in picking the grade of a problem, thats not what was intended as I understand it but it would be unwise to close the door on feedback from the folks who are able to provide it.

Anyways I'm not sure i'm entitled to an opinion, last time I climbed Chillax, Superswinger etc they were graded 7a 

Just my 2c

 

I can guarantee that it will drive Dave F to tears, been there done that with the old route database on climbing.ie, thats why I said fuck it, tore it down and put in the wiki and said do it yourselves. What bleau.info and ukclimbing have is amazing but believe me a LOT of toil, years of effort, went into it. I decided life was too short for that malarky. Zealot required.