Massive downgradings in Ali Baba

Dani Moreno, who just sent his fifth 9a, El Intento in Cuenca (suggesting 8c+), did Hulk in Rodellar a couple of weeks ago. It was set up in 2006 by a french? guy as an 8c and the first route in the Ali Baba cave. Later it was downgraded to 8b+ but now Dani gave it a personal 8a+ grade, due to all kneebars. It should be mentioned that Reme Arenas called it 8b last week and already in 2018, Julen Alonso, commented, "8b/with the knee pads now, you go from not understanding anything to doing it in... 6 tries."

In regards to the 8c+ Hult extension total, Moreno thinks 8b+ is more appropriate. Noteworthy is that the shorter Hulk extension was put up as an 8c+ but is now considered 8c.

As have been mentioned before in this column, this is just the start of down gradings due to knee pads. Once the community improves technically and new sequences are found, possibly 20 % of all routes and boulders where you can use kneebars will probably get downgraded. These new grades should of course not reflect the performance of the pioneers who had to fight harder with bleeding knees.