8 June 2021
Ondra - Old school grades and the evolution of climbing shoes?
Adam Ondra has written an interesting article where he discusses - How much do we owe the evolution of climbing shoes?
"From my experience, a steep route of a certain grade from 30 years ago feels very similar to a steep modern route of the same grade. But a vertical route from 30 years ago often feels sandbagged compared to a vertical route which was put up recently. It is quite rare that some of these old-school routes get upgraded. I do not want to suggest that we should re-grade (upgrade) basically all the routes in places like Buoux, but I want to suggest there might be one more reason why these routes feel so freaking hard."
"From my experience, a steep route of a certain grade from 30 years ago feels very similar to a steep modern route of the same grade. But a vertical route from 30 years ago often feels sandbagged compared to a vertical route which was put up recently. It is quite rare that some of these old-school routes get upgraded. I do not want to suggest that we should re-grade (upgrade) basically all the routes in places like Buoux, but I want to suggest there might be one more reason why these routes feel so freaking hard."
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