UKH

Further to the 'missing UK tech grade' thread, it seems that a common complaint is the compression in the UK tech 6b and above grades making them relatively worthless.  So, how should we go about uncompressing them? Equate them to font grades? Something else? This would seem like a relatively easy win, given that we uncompressed adjectival grades in the past.

Isn't decompress the word to use in normalcy?(or do I give you 10/10 for sucking me in )

Isn't Font also pretty compressed at the higher end? V grades look to me like the best solution as they don't appear to have a ceiling, so people don't get as bogged down with suggesting the next increment. With number+letter grades, there is always going to be loads of compression and super wide grades when you get to the end of the letters and have to suggest the next number up. 

Above V9/7C there's a pretty well established V grade to font equivalency.

• V9 = 7C
• V10 = 7C+
• V11 = 8A
• ...

so neither system can really be argued to have more or less compression in the upper grades as they're the same.

This seems a fairly sensible suggestion to me. Give a tech grade equal to what a boulderer put on the crux section on a safe top rope would give it. Then the E grade takes into account how sustained, strenuous and serious the route is. All very theoretical from my point of view though as I’ll never be climbing at those grades. 

I never have and never will operate at this kind of level but... I have a few questions about using font / V grades for trad routes.

When I approach a boulder problem - the grade gives me an indication of how hard it is to get to the top - maybe 5-6 moves.

If this were applied to the crux 5-6 moves of a trad route - what about the climbing before and after the crux - what impact does that have on the font / V grade? Often when I'm bouldering, I physically couldn't have climb any further past the top of the problem. How relevant is a font / V grade on a trad route where there is another 10 metres to climb after the crux?

Should it be done? Does anybody who would be affected by it care?

Perhaps a system that has been broken for forty years doesn’t actually need fixing 

Add a font grade for bouldery/cruxy routes.

Add a French grade for longer 'sporty' routes.

It's too late to change it properly though, so this'll have to do (and it happens already tbh, but it's more by chatting & reputation rather than written in the guidebooks). I personally think that guidebooks should include this info as its often critical to choosing which route to try 🙂

There's a very good reason why tech grades are broken at the higher end. It's because the steeper routes get, the less likely it is that knowing how hard the crux move is will tell you much about the overall physical difficulty of the pitch. It makes sense that routes of VS and HVS are typically no more than vertical, usually less. There are very often places to stop, think and rest. The crux move therefore is far more likely to be approached in a state of relative freshness. Now compare that with E6 and E7. Typically these will be overhanging, pumpy and with fewer options to rest. Rarely will you be faced with the crux while still fresh. That's partly what makes them harder, but it's also why the 'hardest move in isolation' becomes less and less relevant as the angle and the pumpiness of routes goes up.

So I think you're right in questioning what problem spreading out higher tech grades would solve. I don't think it would be popular simply because the relevance of the hardest move diminishes as the grade and angle of routes increases.

Another point that's often made is that modern hard sport routes are often described with a breakdown, such as "7c to an 8A+ crux then 8a to the chain". This is often used in justification of boulder grades for sections of steeper routes. What's often overlooked is that this is useful info as a way to better explain the sport grade, not that it's being proposed as a replacement for it. The 9a (or whatever) grade of the example route is still by far the most useful single piece of info. Just as the sport (i.e. top-rope) grade of a hard trad route would be the most valuable single piece of info to tell people how physically hard a trad route is. This might not be the case for easier or slabby trad routes, which might explain the attachment many long time climbers have to tech grades, but it definitely is for harder, steeper ones.

Do you need a sport grade if the technical grade is opened up? That allows the overall trad grade to tell you a lot more about the nature of the route. The current problem is that the UK tech grades at the high end cover multiple font/V grades, so E10 doesn't tell you as much with an accompanying tech grade of UK7a as it could if the tech grade was one of a much larger f/V range. You currently have safe E10 7a and dangerous E10 7a. Cruxy 10m E10 7a and sustained 50m E10 7a. The grade doesn't tell you any of that though.

For whom? Are any actual E10 climbers bothered by this, or just armchair punters? (Apologies if you actually are an E10 climber)

I literally stated " it's too late to change it properly, so this'll have to do".

I'm well aware of the problem, and what the ideal solution would be, but it's never gonna happen 😅

If UK trad and tech grades were the only grades around in the world, I could see the value in tweeking the system. But with a very good and well known altervative system around for grading physical difficulty, this is naturally going to be adopted instead, at least at the top end. 

If you started off now with all the existing grading systems available to you except for the UK one, you wouldn't create the UK tech grade to express difficulty, you'd use one of the existing ones instead.

Reinventing the tech grade would probably suffer the same fate, with even more mess as different guidebooks published at different times used completely different tech grades. 

And at the very high end of UK trad climbing noone would care anyway because they can already use French, font and V grades to solve the issue. As Alan says, it's been broken for decades and to an extent the problem has already been solved by gradually abandoning it as a useful source of information.

That's a good point that as routes get harder, it's more important to know how hard the hardest move is when you get there, rather than how hard it is in isolation, and I presume that a boulder grade will give a better idea of that than a strict "in isolation" tech grade.

The solution to dealing with the compression has been suggested many times before - it's simply to add "+" and maybe "-" to 6b upwards and maybe 6a as well. Whether it's a problem that's still worth solving is a different matter.

A lot of top end climbers seem to be supplementing trad grades with sport and/or boulder grades now, and have been for some time, so it seems the answer is yes. 

So what makes you think they need or want a better UK tech grade as well? What currently missing information would it provide?

The problem is this issue was decided over 30 years ago when English 7a, 7b were the obvious developments but were not adopted and expanded because the French sport grades were so superior in expressing difficulty. As John says, the relevance of single move difficulty declines when the sequences are no longer short or single moves after rests.

The first word of your title is redundant. What do climbers operating in the grade range you are discussing use? Ask them.

The problem that will develop is that the grade in guidebooks isn't the one used in the real world.

It would be good to go back and decompress UK tech 6b and 6c, but that's not easy.

I don't climb hard enough to know if tech grades are compressed on the harder routes, but supposing that they are, one way to resolve it would be to let people comment on the grades of individual routes that they have climbed in a shared public forum. Over time a consensus should emerge.

It's not that the grades are wrong (inaccurate) per se in the higher grades, it's that they are either too wide (not specific enough), or the system is flawed (grading the hardest move not providing useful enough information compared to a grade for the physical difficulty of the pitch as a whole). Or both. So you'd need to either adjust the tech grades, or adjust the system, first, before folk could comment and meaningful information emerge in the way you describe.

I was deliberately being a little bit ignorant, but just to highlight that the grades are the way they are because of consensus. Who is going to adjust the system? Does it really need adjusting when route descriptions give lots of useful extra information?

Technical grades would only really need sorting out if the consensus decided to chuck out all these foreign grades and restore our very own grading system to the prominence it deserves.

Did I really just type that twaddle 😁

Leaving aside the us and them politics that may bias opinions, I actually think the UK trad grade works pretty well for the level that I operate at. 

I think nearly everyone agrees that tech grades work ok up to 5c, work to some extent at 6a, and fall apart at 6b and above.

IMO the problem started when the "one trad grade per adjectival grade" correlation was lost above E2. Basically, all other factors being equal, a route that's 1 E grade higher should be 1 tech grade higher.

[Edit: what makes a route 1 E grade higher? - it's when the vast majority of people who've led the routes think route A is harder than route B]

There's also John's point about considering moves "in isolation" being less relevant at higher grades because you're less able to climb them "in isolation".

Since I don't think I've ever done a recognised 6b move, tech grades work fine for me.

It’s pretty rare for any set of rules and metrics to be universally applicable. The current tech trad grades work for the overwhelming majority of climbers on the overwhelming majority of routes which is basically up to 6a. In reality, if it works up to say HVS5b, it’s done its job for most ascents.

Given that it generally works, and is fairly well understood, it’s probably most sensible to add another piece of info at 6a and above, like the sport and or boulder grade, which work well up there and are very well understood. It works on hard sport routes where Hubble, say, gets F9a with additional intel as (f8b/+, F7c).

As most guides will be based around online databases, then user consensus data should be enough for the harder trad grades to be supported by accompanying sport and boulder grades. It shouldn’t need any great intervention.

Is there any reason, other than current familiarity and recent tradition, to think that sport grades wouldn't work equally well for climbs in those grades? Sure, they would be assessing something slightly different but unless a route is notably pumpy I'd expect differences to be pretty minor, i.e. if a route is notably cruxy then the sport grade directly reflects the difficulty of the crux. If it isn't notably cruxy then surely the sport grade would be more useful anyway.

Then we'd not only have similar grades indoors and out, but grades we also could better relate to when overseas.

Is it just inertia that's preventing this from happening?

hi,

for me the sports grades would work better. My interaction with trad lead grades is; 6a probably won’t fall off, 6b probably will fall off, 6c won’t finish the route. For me the sports grades and bouldering grades are far more nuanced 😂

I think the trad tech grade got left behind as success on harder routes came to also rely on the sequences into and out of the crux move, which is far better represented by sport or bouldering grade. It’ll probably happen by osmosis as climbers spend a significant portion of their time on indoor walls and sports trips. Similarly the democratisation effect of the data being on line should eventually lead to sports grade adoption if it is really the best descriptor.

Sorry, I really don’t get this. UK trad grades along with a guidebook description provide all you need to know for an onsight up to around E7 eg E3 5b for Exorcist on Lundy and Ocean Boulevard Swanage. A brief look at either route will tell you exactly what you’re in for. Same with standing say at the bottom of Hairless Heart E5 5c or London Wall E5 6a. What use would a single French grade be for Exorcist or Hairless? I can see why French grades may be useful for people climbing E7/8 and above because these routes have to be toproped first and are done with a sport/wall fitness background. Is there really a need for French grades for eg Milestone Buttress Direct or Gashed Crag, each with their peculiar chimney pitches. There is a disconnect between trad and wall/sport because they are entirely different - using just French grades for both would be unhelpful and probably more dangerous than the current systems.
 

I haven't done Exorcist but at a guess London Wall E5 F7a+, Hairless Heart E5 F6c.

Tells me much more about what to expect than does E5 6a and E5 5c and means there's less of a need to be stood at the bottom of it and/or reading a text description before being able to assess whether it's a route for you.

The more I think it through, the more I come to realise that objective advantages of UK tech grades over sport grades are largely illusory.

Really? E5 5c immediately tells me it is effectively a solo and I would have to be absolutely certain I'm not going to fall off a 5c move. E5 F6c could be very pumpy but safe or have safe runouts like Right Wall - doesn't tell me much at all in fact!

As I recall Hairless was graded F6a in The Grit List, with Heartless at F6a+. Or maybe the other way round. In my very limited experience of French slabs they can appear harshly graded; I remember failing miserably on a 6a on the slabbier right side of Styx Wall after managing 6b and 6c without to much trouble on the steeper rock further left. My theory is that the French differentiate between technique/balance/finesse/subtlety/precise footwork/precariousness/etc - ie the things that are usually required for slab climbing - and the simple hard work of 'physical difficulty'; so they award slabs a lower grade than we would expect. We, however, grade them higher because they are 'technical', and 'technical difficulty' is what our tech grades are grading.

Caveat: the above might be rubbish, and I've no idea whether The Grit List was regarded as authoritative.

Maybe the ideal would be to use the UK tech grade for cruxy routes and a French grade for sustained routes. Immediately an extra bit of information for free along with the most useful information in the grade used without actually adding a third dimension.

Maybe use the YDS for the more in between cases🙂

Yes, I suspect I've overgraded Hairless somewhat! Which would explain its getting the same sport grade as Right Wall (which is far harder physically so should get a harder sport grade). Correcting it to E5 6a+ would be a better illustration of my point.

In my experience, French slabby route grades appear harsh simply because such routes can be done by climbers who aren't strong or fit enough to do steeper routes, particularly a lot of the old guard. And if more folk can do a route it gets a lower grade. This can lead to things like a slabby 6a feeling far harder than a steep one to a wall-trained climber, but it needs to remembered that to many climbers who don't train on steep routes the difficulty perception may be the other way around.

See my reply above to Ian Parsons. Apologies for not thinking the actual grade through properly. 

I thought it was pretty obvious that seeing a 3-grade difference told you more about how different a proposition the two routes actually are compared to just a 1-grade difference. (Note that E5 6a could also be effectively a solo - e.g. White Wand (E5 6a). As it happens, it's more like a 6-grade difference so it draws a much starker distinction as to what to expect in the two cases.

I think most people who climb E5+ just know what equivalent grades are for hard stuff they want to try. Routes like Nightmayer (E8 6c) or Point Blank (E8 6c) , people just know they're around 8aish. Can't imagine many people describe them in terms of a 6c tech grade anymore.

I've never had an issue with that. I can have a fair idea of what E3 5b, E3 5c and E3 6a are going to feel like before I get on the routes, and the E3 grade is certainly needed between E2 5c and E4 6a; it would be a massive step up otherwise!

Well, the best reason is 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'. And at all but the higher grades it works very well. I think the trad + tech grade system is brilliant, and am just glad the system was devised the way it was.

Brown's idea of allowing UK grade voting for foreign trad routes (in addition to their own ratings, wherever that might be) seems a great way of achieving the above.

Possibly you've misunderstood me; I'm well aware of the spread of tech grades across E grades, but IMO what should have happened was (assuming a "normal" 5 tech grade spread across each E grade from "death" to "1st moves safe crux")...

• VS    4a, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5b
• HVS 4b, 4c, 5a, 5b, 5c
• E1    4c, 5a, 5b, 5c, 6a
• E2    5a, 5b, 5c, 6a, 6b
• E3    5b, 5c, 6a, 6b, 6c
• E4    5c, 6a, 6b, 6c, 7a
• E5    6a, 6b, 6c, 7a, 7b

But because of tech grade compression in the 6's, the last grade where it works like that is E2 and even there E2 6b's are a rarer beast than they should be. You can see that E3 & above look all wrong in that little list because of the compression; currently the mid points are more like E3 5c/6a, E4 6a & E5 6a/b.

Missed opportunity, we could have had E10 8b by now 😁 - all academic, far too late now

And yes I realise there are also routes outside those spreads but they really are outliers.

What are sport grades (& bouldering grades) like in the lower grades? Are they sufficiently granular, are they consistently applied. If they're ok in all these respects then using them instead of tech grades is mainly going to be a matter of mental adjustment.

I quite like the idea of Adjectival grade plus sport grade OR boulder grade because which is used is an extra piece of information about the nature of the route.

I know the point you're making, but I disagree about the cause. I'm unconvinced that 5c is a wider grade than 5b, so rather than compression, I'd argue that the reason for the grade spread at E3/4 is the point John Arran made about steep sustained ground giving a higher E grade without a necessary increase in the difficulty of individual moves. A steep well protected stamina E3 5c is going to require more fitness than a similar route at E2 5c, so the trad grade has to increase despite the moves being no harder individually. When folk say this would be clear in the difference in sport grades (were they to be used), to me this is just as clear in the different connotations of what you'd expect from a E2 vs E3 5c of this type, but with the added bonus that you know there aren't going to be any stopper moves.

Yes, thanks. E5 F6a+ would be a good indication that one should run away!

It’s funny… when ever grading systems are discussed… someone always brings up How superior the english overall + tech grade is… snd when the flaws of it are pointed out, tge answer is to read the description. If you need to read the description, the any grade would do… in fact, no grades are needed at all.

but I personally do value the grade, I also value the information it gives… so to assess If I should try to climb said line or not. And as said, I would prefer to just browse the grade and not read a novel (albeit those can make some nice reading After a replacing sauna with a cool beer at hand… or perhaps some nice cheese and crackers, plus a glass off redwine).

so If I see 5.9 R for a single pitch route, I wouldn’t hesitate to go for the onsight. But 5.9 X, would really make me ponder If it us worth it. Similarly 5.10 PG or even 5.11 PG, I’d also try my luck on the OS. But I would not even think about a line with a grade of say 5.10 X.

so After all this rambling, I unfortunately don’t have a suggestion on How to sort out the grade-system. But as is evident about any top end FA or repeat media reporting, additional variables (french sport route grade, or Fontainebleau boulder grade… or even both) are given. Which is pretty good indication that the original grade is not enough.

There's a very effective suggestion right there!

I'm a boulderer and I don't do routes but I would say that it used to be the case that tech grades were used for bouldering in the UK too, at least in some guides, and I'm glad that's basically disappeared because I do find them to become effectively useless pretty quickly once you go past 6B.

If you want to change them I'd say they'd need to be compressed a lot. Right now English 6C goes from 6C/+ to 7C/+, which is... well absurd, frankly. Even if that was changed from 6C+ to 7B, that's still a pretty massive range, for some people that's potentially flashable to not maybe actually really doable in even several sessions. And if you compress them even more... you just get Font grades no? So you might as well just use those if that's what you want to do. Which is originally what they were right?

What, having four grades next to each route?

Not only that, but the fact that it's basically fine if you don't mind reading the description as well doesn't just mean that it's good enough that throwing it out and replacing with something marginally better wouldn't be worth the faff, it means that it's a mathematically perfect grading system which nothing else could measure up to.

The first of these is almost certainly true, the second doesn't seem to be, to me at least. Adjectival plus sport grade, adjectival plus danger rating and sport grade plus danger rating all seem like slightly more useful two-part systems than adjectival plus uk tech, even at bumbly / punter grades.

Good post, and I agree that grades are very useful but don't always give enough info.

The way I'm thinking about it, I need more information about a route the closer it is to my limit. If the overall grade is well within my ability then that's the only information I need. If it's harder, I'd like to know how safe it is and if it's cruxy or pumpy (or both).

So that's at least three pieces of information and I can't think of any grading system that gives more than 2 of those. The UK grade tries to but there is room for ambiguity that needs additional info to clear up. Often, more info is available just by looking at the route, like the example above where White Wand is a solo and London Wall is safe. Sometimes a route description is needed.

Decompressing the tech grade could give better info about difficulty but I haven't seen many people rocking up to an E5 or above route with no prior knowledge, glancing at the grade and saying 'yep, I'll do that'. There are some exceptional people who could, but most people need more information than the grade.

You may not have seen many but I assure you there are plenty who do, and have done since the 80s and 90s, when getting info and beta about routes was very much harder than it is today, so genuinely onsight ascents were very common. I have no reason to doubt that plenty of routes at those grades still get climbed properly onsight and quite frequently too.

Indeed I can remember one route which I 'm pretty sure was easier because I had no other info than a basic gidebook description. I'm not claiming Ludwig (E6 6b) was easy; quite the opposite. But I very much doubt I'd have tried it at all if I'd read its horrific write-up in the history section of the guide before rather than after getting on it! Actually it may well have been the second ascent; the first ascent report that informed the guidebook write-up was so scary I wouldn't be surprised if it took someone like me who wasn't well connected to the grapevine to be blissfully unaware enough to even get on it at all!

Different social circles I suppose. That sort of climbing still counts as exceptional to me, and a fair point that a guidebook description only helps if it's a good description.

How do you know if your E3 5b is 'death on a stick' or 'pumpfest' from the comfort of your armchair when you're planning a trip?

Read the UKC comments? Look at the guidebook topo??

Aren't Great Slab and Sunset Boulevard both E3 5b? (Have done the former but not the latter.) A crag photo will reveal that the first is a slab with no obvious cracks for gear, whereas the latter is on a crack seamed crag famed for pumpyness. 

Mick 

Usually I just assume an E3 5b will have a bold / very bold crux. OK there may be the odd exception but very few. That's really one of the easiest grades to judge from the armchair.

I'd have thought there would be as many pumpfest E3 5bs as super bold routes (albeit a bigger proportion of bold routes on grit), but both are rare. Maybe safe pumpfests get held at top end E2 5b to push back against grade creep.

If you search the UKC website for "E3 5b" it gives the possible formation of an interesting list where bold clearly shows more interest.

Top two pages of items:

Archangel: very bold and sustained balancy 5b.

Great West Road: very bold.

Great Slab: cruxy but very bold.

Ocean Boulevard: Pumpfest

Harpoon: now very bold as all pegs are gone but still has some micro-wires and a spike runner (some now suggest E4)

5b Groove: presumably very bold?

The Mauler: vote consensus E3 5c

Northern Ballet: very bold but my guess is it will end up as E4.

Sickbay Shuffle: very bold traverse, just about E3 for the area.

Cheat: some gear but pumpy to place (E2 with siderunners).

Then a bunch of scary routes on South Stack (which has a starred E5 5b!?...Death Trap)

Sorry, meant Ocean Boulevard. (Gloria Swanson moment!)

Mick 

Only seconded but the gear seemed dreadful. Wouldn't argue with E4. Feels like another world from Break on Through. One to avoid - or very carefully consider. A pity. Nice, balancy climbing.

Mick 

Definitely not. I can think of literally one example of the former in Scotland (Big Zipper at Dumby). Pick any other E3 5b in the country and it's almost bound to be a 'don't fall off' type route.

I've chatted to quite a few people who have done routes in the E7-E11 range and there seems a broad consensus among the people I've spoken to that changing the British tech grade would be a good thing. Most people identified around British 6a/font 6a as the point you'd branch off and start using font grades (but still in the same layout of Ewhatver 6X). So an E1 6a would still be an E1 6a, an E4 5c still an E4 5c. Once you got to harder British 6as, you could add a +, or even go to 6b/+. So you could end up with an E3 6a+, or E6 6c+ or whatever. 

The advantage of this tweak is that it can be introduced slowly and doesn't effect the old system too much (in the interim you may end up with 2 identical routes being E6 6b [old system] and E6 6c+ [new system], which admittedly isn't ideal, but workable). Tech grades are largely meaningless above 6b atm (even 6a is very broad), so it would only effect those routes that the tech grade is currently poor at describing atm.  I feel it would really help with adding info to those routes.

The only hurdle I can see with implementing this is around defining "the hardest move". Around the time of the egrader, I had a long chat with Pete Whittaker about the UK tech grade (far more issues with the tech grade than the e grade btw - even if it isn't quite as sexy 🤣 ) . We stumbled a little on defining a move. If you don't really carefully define this, then you're opening up the system to huge errors with people grading for the hardest hand move vs people grading for some huge enduro sequence more akin to a cave link or something. The only route we were both familiar with was Pete's route Sleepy Hollow, which was actually a good example of how defining a move can change a grade.

The meat of the route is a sustained boudler problem arete, with hard (but not outrageous) moves that collectively create a very hard climb. I forget the exact numbers, but the whole sequence from ledge to the end of the crux is around 8a, whereas the hardest hand move is more like 6c. So do you give it E10 8a, or E10 6c? You'd need everyone to be using the same definition of a move for the system to work. I think what we came up with as a definition of a move was either standing up on your feet where your hands were, or the hardest combination of 3 hand moves (whichever you do first). With this definition a rockover would be a single crux sequence, and 3 hand moves on a traverse (think Bon Voyage) would also constitute a crux sequence. As long as this definition (or something similar) was stuck to by everyone, I think this would work really well. Sleepy Hollow might be E10 7c+, Greatness E10 8a, Hold Fast, Hold True E10 7b+. All quite cruxy routes and all given E10 7a currently - you can see it actually starts to give you a hint at the respective dangers of each route too, which of course you already get with tech grades on the easier routes!

Interested to hear your thoughts anyway...

I think defining a "move" is virtually impossible, but I think you definitely know when you have done one. 

If you use a capitol letter in the the font grade, as is normal practice these days, your system could work well. i.e. 5b, 5c, 6a, 6A+, 6B etc.

In your example E6 6b [old system] and E6 6C+ [new system]

One option for defining a move could be all four limbs aren't on the holds they started on. e.g. that could be two hand moves and a cut-loose with the feet.

Great. Yeh, first idea sounds like a goer. 

I think your definition of a move is potentially a bit better too (at least more distinct).  It would mean something like Sleepy Hollow would be broken up into multiple moves that were slightly easier than the boulder grade for the whole section,  but then maybe that's what's needed? And if you want further information, you give it a sport grade.

Looks like we're sorted 👍

By that definition a jump move would be complete when actually in mid air!

The best definition I can think of would be a movement between positions of relative stability.

Na, we all know that regardless of difficulty or danger the correct grade for *every* hard trad route is E10 7a.

On the basis of your description I'd just give it E10 F8a and remove any need to define the undefinable.

Perhaps I've not explained my point well enough (or perhaps i should have capitalised the letters). I'm talking about font grades, not French grades.  The French grade would be a lot harder than 8a. And giving an 6m bit of grit a French grade is a lot less useful than a boulder grade. 

Yes, capitals would have been a lot clearer.

In which case, E10 8A, surely! That's how hard it is, not how hard some random undefined chunk of it might happen to be.

Although I'm not completely convinced that sport grades for short routes are inherently as unhelpul as you suggest. Plenty of longer routes have a very short crux section between rests, and I don't see a lot of difference between that and a very short route. Except, of course, familiarity within the bouldering world.

I wouldn't call 'a move' a random undefined chunk of a climb. JLS has given us a great definition of one. I agree that something closer to 8A is more useful than something closer to 6C, but then you get into the whole world of people using font grades as sport grades on highballs, which is just a bit messed up.

Ultimately you can give things both grades e.g. E8 7A+ (8a). More info the better, but I think for most grit routes, people would find the boulder grade for the hardest move the most use. 

This is of course what the UK tech grade was designed to do and is fairly unique in its attempt to describe the hardest move only. It would be a strange system that described the hardest move up to E6 6a, then suddenly deployed a font grade to describe whole sequi.

That's where I would disagree. It's a valiant attempt, to be sure, but I don't think there ever will be a single definition that's robust enough to cope with the diverse range of cruxes out there. Sometimes the crux will be simply swapping hands on a hold, or even flipping a pocket from pulling down to undercutting.

It's true that most will agree in general on where a crux is, but a lot fewer will agree on where it starts or ends.

I'm not sure a crux has to be a whole move or, on the other hand, a single move. The crux might be a dyno, but the move not completed until the other hands and feet have then been moved up. Or the crux might be a sustained sequence of, say, three 6a moves.

But we weren't talking about the crux, we were talking about the hardest move, which is what the tech grade purports to assess. If we were talking about the crux then there's many a pumpy route where the crux (i.e. the most likely place to fail) is relatively easy in isolation compared to moves lower down that can be climbed when fresh.

But you were talking cruxes in the post I replied to!

I may be a bit confused now, but, in that case, what does the UK tech grade refer to - the crux or the harder move lower down (as I would assume). Are you saying that, say, An E4 6a might have a 5c or even a 5b crux?

Isn't the most likely point of failure sometimes referred to, at least in sport climbing, as the "redpoint crux" to differentiate it from the true (??) crux, the actual hardest move?

I disagree with the whole premise of the discussion (not Franco's post). 

Grades are never going to encapsulate everything you need to know about a route. That's what a guidebook description is for: the grade complements the description.

A UK trad grade (adjectival + hardest move) is no better or worse than any other trad grading system when combined with a guidebook description. Sports grades work well for bolted routes where the protection is not an issue: photo topos are perfectly adequate here (in most cases).

The problem arises when the sports topo ethos (minimal descriptions +  photo topo) is applied to trad crags. You lose all the important information in the description, which you are then trying to replace using the grading system.

The answer is simple. Buy the definitive guidebook, and read it!

Or even placing a piece of crucial protection... do we give those font grades? 

The use of font grades to replace UK tech grades does present a solution to the tech 6c/7a bottleneck, IMHO. However, having not being a boulderer for about 20years, I have absolutely no idea what they mean. Anyone care to suggest some benchmark font grades for some classic grit routes E4+ ?

Ah yes, so I was. Oops!

Context init! 🥴

That's it exactly. The crux is the hardest bit in isolation. Of course, different climbers may have different ideas on where exactly the crux is (for them) on any one route.

Your musing about "an E4 6a might have a 5c crux" could have some truth to it, but for a different reason. The tech grade is meant to describe the crux in isolation, but of course, when we do a pitch we aren't climbing the crux in isolation. So in theory, everyone onsighting your E4 6a might say that, for them, the high crux on a tiring pitch felt 6a, when in isolation, had they thrown a rope down the route and sat on it prior to trying the crux, it might feel 5c. But in the real world we do whole pitches, not isolated moves, so the tech grade will quite rightly reflect what people think it feels like on lead.