I've been thinking about this for awhile, grades are a rough estimate but very arbitrary, so I've been giving personal ratings to things I do outside. Generally, I down grade things but not always.

I've come up with a simple formula that seems to work for me I'd like to share for discussion and to be flamed.

It only works starting at V4 IMO.

You break a boulder problem down into two sections, rate each of those two sections, then add 4 and divide by two.

The two sections can be just one move thats say v5 or it can be two sections that are a comination of moves.

So if you do v4 into v4 it goes like this, 4 + 4 + 4 / 2= v6

Or

v10 into v8, 10 + 8+ 4 / 2= v11

v6 into v8, 8 + 6 + 4/2= v9

Anyways, I was surprised that I found it to be very accurate when I applied it to boulder problems I've already done, almost perfect.

v14 into v14, 14 plus 14 plus 4 /2=v16

If height makes everything easier, how come some of the strongest climbers in the world are under 5'10"?

you can't be serious when you suggest different ratings for height, ape index etc. ratings are a guideline not a definitive answer

At what point did i say being tall makes it easier?.. you clearly missed the point.

and if you did not realise height effects moves by now then you never will.

Your establishing the fact that these grades are personal yet you bring up when someone asks how hard it is you tell them its V-whatever.

If your establishing a personal rating then why use the "V" system. Shouldn't you be using a "Flesh" or "F" rating system? At least a system that would not be so easily confused with the "V" system that so many of us already are familiar with.

Your process works better for boulder problems that climb more like routes, where you can take it and break it up into a series of smaller moves.

The best representation of a grade is when its distilled down to 1 move. Like "Power of Silence" on North Mtn is considered V10 because of 1 move, the pinch. if you can stick the pinch strong their is no reason any other move on that problem will give you problems. Even if your 5' tall.

Or Daily Dick Dose where you either do the move and send or you don't.

If you said to me "oh its like V7" I'd be like "Like which V7?" Babyface or Daily Dick Dose?

I've come up with a simple formula that seems to work for me I'd like to share for discussion and to be flamed.

Either your name is Max Zolotukhin, or you are a plagiarist.

posted 11/16/09:

http://climbingczar.lt11.com/.../11/16/the-equation/

Linked to from Paul Robinson's blog 5/5/11:

http://p-d-robinson.tumblr.com/...-cents#disqus_thread

It's not necessarily plagiarism. It could be independent invention without knowledge of the other's work, like Newton/Leibniz.

Remember that guy John Sherman aka "The Verm"? He told me once that originally V3 was anything Todd Skinner wasn't able to climb. Now that's one hell of a system.

Something that pisses me off about the whole grade system (including this im afraid ;p) is that height has no baring on how hard/easy it makes a move when it clearly does.

In an ideal world this would also be broken down into 2 more sub sections that of ''small move'' and ''big move''. Then by getting the AVG height of a climber (lets say 5.9?) work out if a formula to accurately grade something to him. From that you can easily draw other conclusions as to the true grade for people of other heights.

With ought question their are some routes ive been on where my height felt perfect (one comes to mind as a f7a) where as for my old partner who was much taller im sure the crunched up moves made it at least a 7a+ for him. Also the latest route i done was 7c or so, the crux move was a series of slap ups to get to a sweat spot. He could do it in 2 slaps where i had to do it in 3. Given the fact this was max limit climbing that 1 extra slap up felt like it pushed the grade to me. In that 1 move alone it felt like i had to give 20% more than he did.

Edit: i forgot about that ape index thing or what not, but that is simply a case of factoring in the + or - after the math of a neutral person?.

For example a guy of neutral ape and 5''9 would be similar to a guy of 5''8 and +1? perhaps. In terms of a stretchy v4 feeling like a stretchy 4v to both. Where as to a guy of 5'2 neutral it would feel like a dyno v5?.