- Which rope to tie into. This is important, because our routes do tend to wander a bit, and it's not always obvious from where the starting holds are. Of course you should be looking at the route all the way up to the belay bar before starting, to see where it finishes.
- The name of the route. This is of no real importance, but we try to make them fun
- The initials of the routesetter who set the route. Do you have a favourite yet?
- Whether the route is intended for Youth. These routes not only space the holds for smaller climbers, but the hold selection is also done with small hands in mind. Large climbers may find these routes uncomfortable!
- The rating for the route
- The rating for the boulder problem that starts the route. We try to put a boulder problem on each roped route to get a lot more boulder problems into the gym. The boulder problem ends at the second taped "V" (or a box on some of the older routes; we switched to a "V" because they are less likely to get rubbed off by wayward feet).
Thursday, May 27, 2010
The Evolution of the Rating Card
We've been working on our rating cards. You know, those white cards at the base of each climb that tell you:
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Kudos for putting so much effort and experimentation into your tagging system. A few comments, some highly opinionated, your mileage may vary:
ReplyDelete- As someone who needs reading glasses, but doesn't wear them when climbing, I find a few gyms have useless tags, written in small letters, often in pencil. Your tags are easily readable, even without glasses.
- I'm all for adding the identity of the routesetter, but so far initials haven't done it for me - they aren't distinctive enough, and I haven't made a point of trying to sort them out. Maybe visual icons would be better. If I enjoy a climb, I definitely want to seek out other climbs by the same routesetter. Icons would make it easier to find those climbs and more memorable.
- curiously, I'm just as likely to use the wrong top-rope for a climb as I am in another gym. Maybe that's because it's sometimes hard to read the numbers at the top of the wall, or because the numerical part of my brain shuts down while climbing. Can't fault you for trying, though. I just need to try harder to see where the climb ends.
- please try to avoid white tape on the lighter walls and black/dark tape on the darker walls.
- finally, although you've stated that many people like the concealed ratings, I'm among those who don't. And I've found the sliding concealing windows to be sticky and awkward, and it's irritating to have to manipulate them if I'm shopping for a climb of a certain grade.
I really don't know how to make both camps happy, but here are a couple of suggestions:
- leave new routes ungraded for a week or so, and then make the grade permanently visible.
- make grades 10- and below unconcealed, but conceal the higher grades. This is on the assumption that advanced climbers don't want to know the grade, but that less advanced climbers would prefer to know the grade.
Sorry, this is way longer than I meant it to be, but I hope it may be useful for discussion purposes. Hope nothing sounds too critical, your tag system is great and can only get better.