UKH

Howdy folks, 

Looking at future goals and big routes and realised I'm going to need to be faster to get them done. I see a lot of articles suggesting to get quicker on the belays. For me this isn't an issue, it's more the physical act of climbing fast.

I'm a pretty laid back person and when climbing I've found I tend to have one speed whether I'm climbing a route at my limit or a route at a sub maximal grade and some friends have also commented on this. 

Thoughts I've had to improve climbing speed are, go out and climb more rock, when on route place less gear on easier sections of climb and actually focus on being smooth, efficient and fast while climbing. 

Does anyone have any suggestions of ways I can improve my speed.

If you are a way off the deck, and you've got a bomber piece, don't mess around with the next placement which is only a metre above if it is fiddly. Particularly if you can see where there placement advice is.

This is a bit more clear on some rock types (rhyolite) than others (quartzite, lime)

Sounds like you've already answered this.

Focus on being smooth and efficient. I'm not sure fast is a good thing, stick with being more efficient. Placing less gear on easier sections can help with this, getting a good runner in shortly after leaving the belay then running it out a bit when you feel it appropriate to do so. Obvs if the route traverses consider your second when doing this.

And climb lots

Placing gear quickly is a big one - get good at assessing the gear possibilities not just in terms of good or bad, but quick to place versus potentially fiddly to place. I find myself more often than not preferring cams to passive gear when given the choice with no other good reasons to swing it - though I climb predominantly on grit and granite, which both tend to have a lot of cam-friendly placements. Slotting a bomber cam into a crack is much quicker than selecting the right nut, placing it, seating it and clipping a quickdraw to it. It'll also probably be much quicker in reverse, especially if the nut proves stubborn to remove. And as an added bonus, in the right situation you can often also forego extending the cam, which means less clipping and less hassle rereacking at the belay. All of which adds up over the course of a day.

Some of my climbing partners, even some of the reasonably experienced ones, have strange problems with trusting cams - which means more often than not they choose the fiddly nut placement, and more often than not I spend an awful lot of time trying to remove them. Which often isn't fun when you're 5'8 and your partner is 6'3 - ever tried removing a nut from below your foot in a full layback position on a VD because your partner placed it at full stretch from a good ledge? Anyway, that's a different story...

But obviously that advice is only as good as the rock is suitable for practising it...

Sport climbing

0. Efficient belay change-overs and rope-handling (you've said you're on the case for this).

1. Place less gear.

2. Get the placements right on the first try.

3. Don't fiddle in gear that will be hard to remove.

4. Make placements from more comfortable positions rather than waiting until cruxes and then hanging on desperately to get gear in, and accept the runouts at the cruxes this imposes.

5. Get tricky moves right on the first try or pull on gear rather than fussing around.

6. Bull your way through easier moves rather than trying to do them in the easiest possible way.

7. To actually climb faster (assuming the ground is easy enough for you), don't try to speed up the motions, but rather focus on never having both feet at the same level, so that every step gains altitude.  (On moderate ground, this can speed things up surprisingly.)

Adding to your suggestions , which I think are perhaps the best so far on this thread, 

8. Do more climbing at easier grades. Have mileage days. See how much climbing is possible for you in a day at each grade. 

Train yourself and your partners to collect gear onto their harness into the groupings you rack in, so you don't have to play "which crab does this go on" at every belay.

Climb more steep stuff that you can't afford to dick about on. I seem to remember giving you some homework before... Bionic's Wall and Electric Circus done yet? How about everything at Hobson Moor? Been to Wilton yet???

Place lots of friends? Quicker easier to place. Seems to be the way to go climbing big routes in alps. 

Lots of good stuff written already. 

Focus on being slick, rather than quick. 

Time yourself (cheap casio watch). 

Go climbing with the aim of doing lots of routes. Make sure your partner is on board with this. Rather than doing 5 E1s or what ever you might normally do, maybe try and do 10 HVS instead. 

I find leading blocks of six pitches works well, as you get psyched for leading, and then have a rest for a few pitches. By the time it is the end of your seconding block you will be chomping at the bit to get going. 

When seconding re rack all the gear onto a shoulder length sling, so you can hand it over to the leader straight away. 

Build belays to a single point so you can clip the second in quickly. 
 

On outcrops like Grit, always stay tied in and just walk to the bottom of the next route, roped up. 
 

Single ropes are generally quicker than half ropes. Use twin ropes if the route has an abseils descent. Take a 30m rope if you’re trying to get lots of routes done in a day outcrop climbing.

Don't forget to eat and drink. Start the day well hydrated and fed.

Don’t faff around putting trainers on at top of each route. Walk around in your rock boots, and carry a beer towel for wiping your shoes. 

The Stanage VS challenge is a great place to start, but with a bit of imagination lots of great rounds can be thought up. I’ve always fancied all the Hard Rock routes in the Peak in a day, or all the Classic Rock routes in North Wales in a day. 

HTH

This is a good one. I just can't commit to moves until I've convinced myself I've got the best, most balanced, least strenuous, most static possible way...so it can take me f*cking hours to get up a route. I could have just snatched for a hold half an hour ago and moved on.

Another thought,  that other may not have said so far.

If the crag allows, get some longer ropes and run pitches together.

Fewer belays is less time. Faff per meter climbed is reduced. 

Rope drag quickly teaches you not to place runners left right and center, but more where you need them. Quality over quantity.

Long pitches offer less chance of ground fall, so can space gear like bolts without head or real trouble. 

By the time you've done 70m, you don't have much gear left anyway. It'll make you more conservative throughout the next climb, having just used the same 2 nuts for the last 20m of crack you'll regret lacing the bottom and should learn.

Finally, 60 or 70m pitches is great for stamina and keeping moving, less of that standing around..... Once at the belay, you'll curse a slow climber.... may also help change the attitude of hanging around un necessarily.  

Another way, climb on tidal crags, tie your shoes (or phone) to the bottom of the ab rope if you need more motivation. 

I get the impression that if you climb easy stuff at the same speed as hard stuff then you're being hesitant. Either you're lacking a bit of confidence or you don't see moves quickly, you have to figure them out.

Either way, if that's the case,  more climbing on real rock is the answer. As Rgold says, don't try and move more quickly but just make the move as soon as you see how to.

If you're looking at big routes (whatever your definition of big is), the key thing is to have a few grades in hand and to be used to the style of climbing. For example, if you're steady on E3 and used to climbing Cham granite cracks, you'll cruise granite crack pitches up to about 6a - climbing quickly and placing limited gear.

When you're close to your limit, inevitably the climbing takes longer. If there are only one or two crux pitches and the rest are a few grades easier, that's one thing. If there are many pitches at your limit, you should probably look for another route or compromise on style (eg aiding past hard moves - not uncommon in the Alps for example).

Don't skip the gear on easier ground, things snap, shit happens and there's more to hit on the easy bits. Plus doubt will slow you much more effectively than gear does assuming you're halfway competent at dropping in nuts. 

Just move faster, get into the habit of moving on if you aren't doing something important. Keep working at it and you'll gradually go faster. 

Jk

You say that you climb at a similar speed on easier routes but how much easier do you mean? If your top grade is E3 and you're comfortable on, say, E1 (as in you never fall off E1s but don't find them a walk in a park either), significantly easier climbing would be VS. Are you faster on an average VS compared to an average E1? If not, why is that - is it really due to physically climbing at a similar speed or because you spend a disproportionate amount of time placing gear and building belays? As Tom suggests, try timing yourself.

On easier routes you should be spending far less time thinking about the moves and placing less gear (if you place the same amount of gear on a VS as you do on an E1, that's fine in the UK but you won't get very far on big routes, so you'd need to reassess your approach there). What still takes the same amount of time is placing each individual piece of gear and building belays. So it could actually be those aspects which need to be addressed. However simply by placing less gear you'll be spending less time doing it - partly because you'll be placing it less often and partly because you'll be skipping all the tricky to place (and remove) placements.

I'm not the fastest climber around either (a friend once said that I climb VS at the same speed as E5 but he was exaggerating a bit!), so I'm not really practising what I'm preaching. The thing I find in the UK is that most of the time there simply isn't the urgency to get a move on. I'm fairly laid back and like to enjoy the day. It's nice to be efficient but I'm not usually bothered about doing more routes in day, in fact I prefer to do fewer but harder routes, so speed isn't a big consideration. Even a longish, hardish multipitch route, say on Gogarth Main Cliff, won't take all day at a relaxed pace and if it's at or near my limit I'd probably be too boxed to do another route anyway, so why rush? An exception is rarely in condition mountain crags like Cloggy, where I try to get as much as possible done simply because it's not possible to climb there all the time. However when in the Alps I definitely switch up a gear or five because you really have to be fast. It's a completely different rhythm and overall approach, albeit on easier routes. 

So to some extent the best way to get faster is to actually get on longer routes in the Alps etc, just don't start with the biggest, baddest routes around! That will force you to get faster - you'll have a few misadventures along the way like missing the last lift down off the Midi (a rite of passage) but it's all a good learning experience. As people have suggested, you can try to get faster in the UK and that's not a bad idea but in some way the best way to learn to climb bigger routes faster is to actually get on bigger routes.

Climbing with more experienced, faster climbing partners would also help. As would climbing on real rock more often - that's probably the most important thing, if you aren't already regularly climbing outdoors.

Well, it depends. You have to judge it depending on how easy the climbing is, how sound the rock is, whether anything is likely to fall on your head and whether you are likely to hit anything if you do fall off. Of course you do need to place some gear even on easy ground but on big routes in the Alps there is no choice but to run it out on easier pitches as otherwise you won't get anywhere. That might mean placing gear every 5m or more on pitches which still involve 'proper' climbing (i.e. not pitches which are so easy that you move together). I would do that in the UK as well on easier ground.

t all comes down to judgement, which is relative to ability and experience. Playing it safe is never a bad idea on shorter routes but on longer routes,, there is a trade off against time taken and that in itself could increase the risks, particularly in the Alps. 

Climbing big routes comes with higher risk - that's the reality and if someone doesn't like that idea, they shouldn't climb big routes. This is where having lots of grades in hand and being able to judge the situation comes in. Knowing your partner is also key, particularly when moving together (even with a ropeman / microtraxion).

I'd say, just climb a lot on the East Face of Tryfan. I can't think of anywhere in the UK quite as user-friendly for 'getting in the mileage'. Walk in from road, pretty easy, then you just go up and down a few of the big classics: North Buttress, Gashed Crag, the Pinnacle Ribs, Grooved Arete, and Munich Climb and things on Terrace Wall, like Belle Vue Bastion. All very good for improving rope work and fast protection placement.

Try to have your gear organised on your harness so that when you see a placement, you knew exactly where the piece will be on the harness. You would be amazed at how long it take some people to find the piece of gear they say they need. I often shout up 'the blue nut you asked about is at the back left' type of comment. Also when extending, don't faff taking a crab of the placement to replace it with the two crab extender. This involves time and sometimes dropped gear, just ignore the 'carrier' crab and clip the extender into the sling/wire. 

Climb a lot in a day. Drop your maximum grade and go out to climb as many routes as possible. Good targets we used were 1/2 yosemite days on Stanage midweek (or full Yosemite days, 3000ft) at, say HS or harder (you choose a grade) There are many others. Become more efficient at gear placement and economise on movement rather than trying to do the same old movements faster. (Watch some older climbers who will use a high foot/lay off instead of 4 or 5 small little steps, this saves quite a lot of time!)

Above all, enjoy your climbing. 

Lots of great advice already. 26 pitches is the longest route I have done in a day, I have found the speed secret is actually a whole lot of different small factors that each add up to saving significant time, with one exception. Spend lots of time on real rock with the specific aim of climbing more efficiently / faster ( as well as relaxed climbing time too ). Some extra related thoughts:

- Keep some snacks / treats in pockets and keep snacking when not leading.

- Try to memorise route as much as possible beforehand. Take a photo of the relevant guidebook pages you can access on your 'phone or photocopy and laminate it and keep in a pocket.

- Get in a good position to see the whole route if you can, study it and try to memorise useful features.

- Consider a bum bag or small climbing sack for carrying a small drink, windshell or very light waterproof as required.

- If the rock allows, using slings is often quicker than placing nuts.

- Colour code your gear so you and your partner know what goes on which crabs.

- Keep looking ahead to spot potential gear placements. Having led a pitch you could spot the first piece or the next bolt of the next pitch as long as you are still being an attentive belayer.

- Develop really good verbal and non verbal communication methods with your partner, and also ensure they have the same aims as you.

- Fine tune your rack and ropes to the climb / grade / your skills level.

- Use a guide plate if appropriate.

Have fun!

Smoke a joint

Attention here: The most static possible way is almost never the least strenuous, and quite often in fact the most strenuous!

In onsight trad, in particular in dangerous situations, static climbing has its value. However, do not neglect dynamic climbing.

I had (and probably still have) precisely the same problem, as my belayers can confirm. What did not help was training dynos. This is not about your ability to do dynos, but about climbing style more generally.

What helped is the following exercise, to be performed indoors or on sport routes (for safety):
Lead climb a route close to your onsight limit, ideally onsight. Force yourself to never stop moving. Do not stop to shake out (shake briefly while doing a move), do not stop to figure out a move. When you do not know how to do a move, make a split-second guess and then perform that guess - if you fall, you fall (hence the safety consideration). You do not have to move quickly, just steadily, and resist the urge to halt. Also, do not dog the routes. When you fall off, immediately lower down and pull the ropes, next time start from the ground again.

I will probably be flamed for this, because it's not the British way, but on big ledges etc. Above easy ground, consider dismantling the belay or coming off belay before your partner  gets there.  Treat it as scrambling unroped 'don't fall here' terrain rather than have to be tied to 2 pieces at all times.

I found having a good system for racking gear (always in the same place) helps me to place gear quicker (obvious I know) and also not to rack things I won't use on the route (e.g. no big cams on a small crack route).

I also find I have to "get a grip" sometimes and push on rather than adding another piece of gear when it's not really needed (but then that's me).

Moving more dynamically also uses less energy and is faster.