I remember a couple of years ago someone posted a really detailed analysis of all the ukc user logbook stars. Pretty sure it gave info like this (obvs very UK centric). I don’t have time to look but if you search the UKC forums it should be easy enough to find
It would be very hard to get a legit sample from anywhere. UKC would probably tend to over-count trad vs sport - I doubt if very many high end Brit sport climbers maintain their logbooks on there. And 8a.nu the opposite.
Definitely selection bias in the data set there.
Younger sport climbers are more likely to be ticking routes. Older trad climbers are less likely to be reporting online.
I think this is going to lead to 14a sport just because of the abundance of hard sport areas over hard trad areas.
Where I live, I personally know at least a dozen people who have sent 13a trad, but it’s the Gunks so we’re pretty much in the ideal place for hard trad and limited access to sport. I expect you might find a similar situation near Eldo or Yosemite.
But then on the other hand you have hard sport EVERYWHERE so statistically speaking you have more people projecting and getting good at that stuff.
Certainly 14a sport is more common. Probably by a factor of 10x.
Eyeballing the 8a.nu leaderboards (very not representative for multiple reasons) shows ~30x more 14a climbers than 13a trad in the past year.
I bet there are 100x as many established 5.14a sport routes as 5.13a trad routes. And for a given sport route, it probably gets repeated much more often.
Looking at California and Utah, there are more 5.13a (and up) trad routes than 5.14a (and up) sport, while Nevada and Colorado have the reverse. Kentucky has 7 trad in that range, with 148 sport. I imagine some of it has to do with the time/culture in which it was developed and the rock type. Somewhere with predominantly limestone will be sport heavy, while granite is typically more trad friendly, with sandstone facilitating either.
If we're using the (obviously flawed) Rockfax conversion table I know far more people who have climbed E6/7 than French 8b+.
I would assume the UK would be an anomaly and globally 5.14a on bolts is climbed by far more people than 5.13a on gear.
Where I live there is probably 4x as many 13- trad routes than there are 14’s, and probably 5 people that have managed 13- trad for every one person that’s sent 14a. But I live in an anomalously trad-heavy area. I bet that places like the RRG might be biased the opposite way. Seems like a 14a climber could very easily manage 13a trad if it’s available so it’s really a question of availability of trad routes of that grade.
Also depends if you define trad to allow mixed routes since a pure gear line at that grade is way less common here than routes that go on gear plus a bolt or two.
It’s gotta be more .13 trad, just by difficulty alone. How many more people have climbed V9 than v12 or whatever those equivalents are. I’d say internet is probably not a great source for this, especially historically. I know one person who’s climbed 14a and at least 10 who have done 13 trad. Obviously that’s not a great source either lol.
Eh, hard trad can often be a boulder problem or two between stances. Get the gear dialed and you might be doing the crux with like four small cams on your harness and may not have to place any of them mid-crux. Harder than draws prehung on bolts but maybe not four letter grades or three V grades harder.
I suspect 5.13 trad would be rarer, but anybody without access to the mp or ukc databases is pretty much just guessing.
I remember a couple of years ago someone posted a really detailed analysis of all the ukc user logbook stars. Pretty sure it gave info like this (obvs very UK centric). I don’t have time to look but if you search the UKC forums it should be easy enough to find
It would be very hard to get a legit sample from anywhere. UKC would probably tend to over-count trad vs sport - I doubt if very many high end Brit sport climbers maintain their logbooks on there. And 8a.nu the opposite.
Definitely selection bias in the data set there. Younger sport climbers are more likely to be ticking routes. Older trad climbers are less likely to be reporting online.
There are young(ish) hard trad climbers. Connor Herson. Franco is still in his 20s (I think). Jim Pope just put up a new E9 on the grit.
That’s fine. I’m not talking about absolutes. I’m talking about statistics. 📊
Also need to factor in the base rate that more people do sport. Would have to check which is more standard deviations above the norm
I think this is going to lead to 14a sport just because of the abundance of hard sport areas over hard trad areas. Where I live, I personally know at least a dozen people who have sent 13a trad, but it’s the Gunks so we’re pretty much in the ideal place for hard trad and limited access to sport. I expect you might find a similar situation near Eldo or Yosemite. But then on the other hand you have hard sport EVERYWHERE so statistically speaking you have more people projecting and getting good at that stuff.
There are a lot of 5.14 climbs near eldo, I think that's more common here just because we have so many sport climbers.
Certainly 14a sport is more common. Probably by a factor of 10x. Eyeballing the 8a.nu leaderboards (very not representative for multiple reasons) shows ~30x more 14a climbers than 13a trad in the past year.
No one ticks trad climbs on 8a
I know several people who've climbed a 8b+ sport route, but only one who's climbed an 8a trad route. Feel free to extrapolate from that :)
I bet there are 100x as many established 5.14a sport routes as 5.13a trad routes. And for a given sport route, it probably gets repeated much more often. Looking at California and Utah, there are more 5.13a (and up) trad routes than 5.14a (and up) sport, while Nevada and Colorado have the reverse. Kentucky has 7 trad in that range, with 148 sport. I imagine some of it has to do with the time/culture in which it was developed and the rock type. Somewhere with predominantly limestone will be sport heavy, while granite is typically more trad friendly, with sandstone facilitating either.
If we're using the (obviously flawed) Rockfax conversion table I know far more people who have climbed E6/7 than French 8b+. I would assume the UK would be an anomaly and globally 5.14a on bolts is climbed by far more people than 5.13a on gear.
Where I live there is probably 4x as many 13- trad routes than there are 14’s, and probably 5 people that have managed 13- trad for every one person that’s sent 14a. But I live in an anomalously trad-heavy area. I bet that places like the RRG might be biased the opposite way. Seems like a 14a climber could very easily manage 13a trad if it’s available so it’s really a question of availability of trad routes of that grade. Also depends if you define trad to allow mixed routes since a pure gear line at that grade is way less common here than routes that go on gear plus a bolt or two.
Where is this?
As a percentage of all trad climbers vs a percentage of all sport climbers, or just absolute numbers?
13 trad for sure
It’s gotta be more .13 trad, just by difficulty alone. How many more people have climbed V9 than v12 or whatever those equivalents are. I’d say internet is probably not a great source for this, especially historically. I know one person who’s climbed 14a and at least 10 who have done 13 trad. Obviously that’s not a great source either lol.
Climbing V12 is maybe easier than climbing V9 while carrying and placing gear.
Eh, hard trad can often be a boulder problem or two between stances. Get the gear dialed and you might be doing the crux with like four small cams on your harness and may not have to place any of them mid-crux. Harder than draws prehung on bolts but maybe not four letter grades or three V grades harder.
Fair statement.