There will be more down gradings around Lleida

Throughout the years, 8a has repeatedly said that the grades are too soft around Lleida. Until now, at least a quarter of the popular 8c's and harder are subject of being down graded and possibly 10 % have already been. The reason why we could speculate in down gradings were; High number of personal best and personal down grades, many marked routes as "soft" and also that some guys have been whispering to us. Based on more such recent info, it just might be that within two years the official down grades will have doubled as there might be a chain reaction when the grade brick of some popular routes will be placed one step below. The dilemma is of course that it does not feel awkward to spread "fake" news reporting ascents based on a too high grade. To get around this we sometimes report 9a (8c+). At the same time it is important to say that we do understand climbers who just take the topo grade in order to not offend friends etc. A good example of the down grading dilemma is Mind control, see picture by (c) M. Leśniewski, which we already in 2013 said it should 8c. One year earlier, Gabri Moroni commented in his scorecard, "Everybody knows it's only 8c...but nobody will ever downgrade it :-P." The easiest way to predict down gradings is simply by looking for the most repeated routes, as many climbers, like water, naturally are looking for the easiest way to their destination.