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Vic Ranges - Another Steep Price Increase 13-May-2004 At 4:18:30 PM Damietta

Message

New to Vic so don't know much about Vic ranges in particular. I will probably get shot down by someone for saying this but I always climb a few grades worse in the gym than on rock - I had assumed that there was some sort of 'adjustment' to the grades because many of the things that contribute to the grade of an outdoor route (ie leading, routefinding, locating holds) have been taken away so the physical moves in the gym were graded harder accordingly to still 'meet the grade'. All those folk who were defending the Ewbank grading system (in the 'other' thread) as being wholistic and representative of subjective and objective factors should be able to see this.

In principle I think this is the way it should be - given the amount of people learning to climb in the gym before they head outdoors - when you hit the rock you set your sites a few notches lower than you otherwise would.

My perspective is shaped by my own experience - where I started climbing all the routes at the local crags, even the sport routes, were relatively dangerous compared with most areas that I have since travelled to. I learned at the indoor gym (found it pretty hard) and on boulders and made a smooth transition to rock because I was able to get up similar (to the gym) outdoor grades without falling much (=injury) rather than jumping on the nearest 24 (because I had ticked every 24 indoors) and coming skittling off.

D