Belaying accident and aftermath

for folks that say there is no data one belay and gym accidents ...

there is data ... you just have to look for it ... and not in the Muricas or in INGRISH =P

belay devices in gyms DAV

"accidents/errors" by devices

now whether the data is comprehensive enough is a different question, and its open to interpretation of course ... but there is plenty of data out there

;)

Healyje has been climbing a long time, folks would do well to read both his posts and Rgolds posts twice very carefully and weight them very heavy. Those guys know of what they talk about.

For myself, regarding: "P.S. Hey, Bill - how many people have you dropped over your ancient career? How about you rgold - how many have you dropped in your 50+ years? How about you Frank - how many? Any other old-timers here? How many people have you dropped?"

I have never dropped anyone with any device nor heard of it occurring back in the day (40+ years of climbing). We trained hard on belaying starting with hip belays and later Stich plates - and knew that lots of things can go wrong in the game, so we tried to control the things we could control and make sure we climbed with competent partners. Belaying is one such thing we could control and improve on with practice, practice and more practice. So we did.

HOWEVER, regarding the Cinch: I do know of 2 highly skilled belayers, both of whom I have tied in with, who climb high end sport routes (to 5.13) that invariably see hangs and falls that need catches. They have both held a couple more thousand falls than me I suspect as they play that game a lot, and for both their preferred belay device is a Cinch. They were on El Cap not long ago, one was stepping in front to get around the other at the belay, fell off and the Cinch didn't lock up for quite some time. Hands were burnt and teeth were loosened and bloody. The belayer had a rebelay up through a bolt with the rope running up, and was facing out when the climber pitched. I suspect that the Cinch simply was not able to rotate to lock and thus allowed the rope to run. Operator error sure, however, given the skill level, use level and superb training of those guys, it sure as hell gave me pause on using that tool. As seen up thread on the link on how to replace the wear point on the Cinchs pin, the 5/16 X 3/4, both of those are my Cinches and that's my post, I'm fairly familiar with the device. I had not heard that they have changed technique and that Trango has a different way to belay with the Cinch. I do find that a tad disturbing. Guess I need to get out of the house more often:-) I haven't used either of my Cinchs since my friends accident (they're both fine). Partially because of that accident, and partially because the Grigri 2 goes down in rope size less than 10mm now (the Cinch to 9.4mm) and I like the Grigri2.

Jake Jones wrote:Didn't Long just fail to tie in correctly?

Yes. From Rock & Ice,

Long was climbing at the Rockreation gym in Los Angeles on November 29, when he started lowering from an anchor about 30 feet up the wall. "I went airball, right to the deck," he says. "People who saw the fall said I did some juke cat move midair to orient myself feet first. If I hadn't done that," he says, "I would have gotten a lot worse than a broken leg."

Long says that he ties in with a double bowline, but this time, distracted and tired after a long day of work, he didn't finish the knot. "I made the two bowline loops," he says, "and threaded the rope through my harness, but I didn't bring the rabbit out of the hole and around the tree."

rob.calm

bearbreeder wrote:for folks that say there is no data one belay and gym accidents ... there is data ... you just have to look for it ... and not in the Muricas or in INGRISH =P now whether the data is comprehensive enough is a different question, and its open to interpretation of course ... but there is plenty of data out there ;)

How do you reconcile these stats with those of Healyje?

Healyje wrote:. . .someone is being dropped by a belayer using a grigri every 15 minutes, 24x7 somewhere around the planet these days.

If he says almost 700 climbers per week are being dropped by grigris, who are you to question it by citing actual statistics?

JL

Billcoe wrote:Healyje has been climbing a long time, folks would do well to read both his posts and Rgolds posts twice very carefully and weight them very heavy. Those guys know of what they talk about.

Yes but how many days total between the two of them have been spent at a sport cliff taking whips ALL DAMN DAY LONG? I'll guess three days. Neither one of them have spent the time doing what they argue about.

Climbing has changed and many folks have not experienced the change. I'm getting old myself but MY GOD its easy to occasionally break out of the comfort zone and experience something new.

All I see from this thread is now my suspicions are almost proved, I'll take a belay from anyone I know that isn't using a Cinch. Shouldn't be a problem.

T Roper wrote: Yes but how many days total between the two of them have been spent at a sport cliff taking whips ALL DAMN DAY LONG? I'll guess three days. Neither one of them have spent the time doing what they argue about. Climbing has changed and many folks have not experienced the change. I'm getting old myself but MY GOD its easy to occasionally break out of the comfort zone and experience something new. All I see from this thread is now my suspicions are almost proved, I'll take a belay from anyone I know that isn't using a Cinch. Shouldn't be a problem.

Man, the message is getting lost. I think I'm standing on my head, not sure.

NO NO NO, no-one should get dropped. It's not ok and it's not "shit happens". Keep your damn hand on the rope and pay attention. To this, I agree with the greybeards.

I've got 20 years of climbing myself. Many thousands of whips, and I've never dropped someone. I never plan to either.

Part of my strategy to make sure I never drop someone is ditching a belay device I think isn't safe. I loved my cinch and never had a moment of trouble in the years I owned it. Know what? I'm glad it's gone.

rgold wrote:The idea, embraced implicitly in Joe's comments, that the solution might lie in better training of belayers doesn't seem to engender a whole lot of enthusiasm.

To be honest, I ended that post as I did because I couldn't come up with any specific remedies to today's dropping problem other than keeping the problem highlighted and suggesting people work on their belaying craft and diligently guard against distracted behaviors. The problem is really rooted in the demographic and how and who gets drawn to the sport. The media portrayal of climbing combined with the accessibility and apparent safety of gyms has gives the perception that climbing is for everyone on one hand while simultaneously glossing over or outright ignoring the very real requirements necessary to stay alive doing it.

Sport climbing in general further reinforces that false sense of security in the same way grigris do - 99% of the time there are no issues but, when that 1% crops up, 99% of that demographic are at risk for being victimized. A similar situation happens here in Oregon on Mt. Hood and in Japan on Mt. Fuji - conga lines of people with essentially no climbing experience head up both mountains each year. And 99% of them make it up and down without a problem. However, when things go south they end up victims because they aren't in any way prepared to deal or cope once that illusion of relative safety has been pierced.

Across both demographics it's almost a random roll-of-the-dice as to who gets hurt (or dropped in our case) and people should strive to do whatever they can to remove themselves from that random pool to all degree possible.

Emil Briggs wrote:North Carolina...I can't even estimate the ratio if I go back further than that since there were so few climbers around then. And not only are there many more climbers today they are taking a lot more falls than we did back in the day due to the rise of sport climbing so the opportunity for a belay failure to occur is increased by this as well.

Huh?!?! Crikey, North Carolina has always been home to some of the most creative, bold and bad ass climbers to ever tie into a rope and that was certainly the case in the 70's when there was no shortage of climbers or falling down there that I can remember. How do you think all those bad ass routes got put up?

highaltitudeflatulentexpulsion wrote:Where I have an issue is with his insistence that the Cinch is safe or as safe as anything out there.

Hmmm. You've clearly mis-read my posts. My point isn't whether the "cinch is safe" or not, but rather it's possible to belay safely with one or any belay device. Every belay device design is a matter of compromise and they all exhibit specific strengths / weaknesses or advantages / disadvantages. Those disadvantages can cause belayers to have problems with any device if they aren't prepared to deal with and compensate for them.

I evaluated the cinch for both belaying and lead rope-soloing and found it problematic from the standpoint of the energy which would be required to compensate for its weaknesses. That's not to say I can't use it and use it reliably, rather it means if I have to put more energy out to use it than I feel it's advantages are worth then it doesn't make the cut and the cinch didn't (p.s. Bill Coe has more experience with cinches than just about anyone and the fact that he'd ditch it pretty much says it all).

The fact experienced people have dropped partners with the cinch is again largely due to the fact the majority of cinch users are experienced. I believe when they run into problem it's mainly because they fail to recognize its unique characteristics / weaknesses and mentally just use it like it's a grigri. It's not a grigri and doesn't work like a grigri - act like it does and you're asking for trouble.

reboot wrote: Set aside your well known disdain for the current preferred mode of climbing (which I find no more or less peculiar than BITD; it's an artificial game)...

I suppose if you consider walking up to a rock, eyeing a line, and just going for it sight unseen with no hanging to sort out the moves is somehow 'artificial' then we have a different definition of the word. 'Pure' would be the word I'd use. 'Artificial' to me is hanging your way up a rock.

reboot wrote:While the responsibility hasn't changed, the requirements for sport belaying have increased over BITD.

Hardly, if anything they've dramatically decreased.

reboot wrote:To be a great belayer, you need to not short rope (yeah, I've climbed w/ old dudes who I trust won't drop me, but fuck it feels like I'll just get pulled off the wall b/c they can't predict when I'm going to clip), take on a moment of notice, lock the rope off for an extended period of time at a time, and then rinse/repeat for an hour or longer...what I'm saying is, it's a way more protracted and tedious process than belaying someone on an onsight attempt.

Well, first off: short-roping has nothing whatsoever to do with sport v. trad and everything to do with just being a suck belayer (and I've known some 'world class' climbers who were suck belayers). Second: with regard to "lock the rope off for an extended period of time at a time", that's where sport is more about the hanging than the climbing and the sole reason for the grigri's rise in popularity. But there's no rocket science about it. And the fact remains the majority of climbers today wouldn't be climbers if it weren't for [bolts,] grigris and hanging. Third: "tedious", yes; "protracted", yes as well given the majority of the time tied-in is spent hanging than climbing.

You're point? It's exactly that protracted tedium combined with the reliance on autoblocking devices to enable the hanging that plays directly into the worst of human nature - laziness, boredom, and distraction. I'd say to be a great sport belayer means not allowing yourself to give into to these natural proclivities and instead remain alert, attentive and responsive regardless of how long you have to endure it.

frank minunni wrote:I think you're spot on here. Over the course of a long climbing career, or any other for that matter, mistakes will happen. That was my point earlier just before getting flamed. A good example is driving. Even if you're an excellent and attentive driver, over the years there are those times when you look back and think, "Man I got away with one there." I'm not saying accept the mistakes, with a shrug. It's more trying your hardest to avoid them and if they do happen, learn from them.

True enough, but belaying mistakes weren't typically among them. And it should be noted JohnnyG is basically casting a light on the dark side of what we do which clearly is not really understood today and certainly not (commercially) acknowledged - that there's a million creative ways to injure or kill yourself doing it. I personally think of the whole situation in climbing today is a lot like what the result would be if commercial aviation entailed renting a plane and flying yourself - pretty ugly - and it's the reason the oft-dreamed idea of flying cars has never really 'taken off'. Dropping someone is equivalent to 'pilot' error and you can argue which aircraft are more 'accident prone', but it's again - outside a few lemons - more a matter of not really understanding the characteristics of the aircraft in question.

T Roper wrote: Yes but how many days total between the two of them have been spent at a sport cliff taking whips ALL DAMN DAY LONG?

Sigh. Well, I've logged a lot of hours at trad cliffs taking whips all day and not short sport whippers either. Where I was from bitd, we did occasionally read the phrase, "the leader must not fall" in magazines and could never understand wtf they were talking about and assumed it must be some limp holdover from hemp rope days. We fell all the time. On the six pitch FA I've been doing ground up and onsight I took six 25-footers in a row on a #3 ball nut and a fifty footer on a cam - happens when you're climbing at your limit or a hold breaks (ok, so shit does happen sometimes). And I can hold sport falls all day long with a hip belay without so much as a yawn or the slightest problem. Dogging all day on a hip belay is another matter altogether.

As for trying something new; I've never been interested in that particular change as I find clipping bolts boring beyond words and dogging the antithesis of why I climb. I get the [mass] appeal, but it's just not my thing. Also, if I wan't to focus on the movement without fiddling with gear then I'll just TR a line and skip the faux clipping.

T Roper wrote:I'll take a belay from anyone I know that isn't using a Cinch. Shouldn't be a problem.

Well, given most of the dropping is happening with grigris I'd say that last bit is a quite optimistic, if not idealistic, assertion.

There weren't a whole lot of climbers in the state even in the 90's compared to the numbers now. Crowding has become a big issue at some crags. Places where you used to see a couple of parties all day now have lines on the more popular routes.

As for falling it depends on what cliff you're talking about. In the western part of the state there are a lot of tall but slabby granite domes. Definitely plenty of bold and creative routes on them but folks were not whipping with the sort of frequency you see sport climbers do today for obvious reasons. In the piedmont with steeper quartzite crags falling is a lot safer but again the numbers of climbers was way lower.

Healyje wrote: Huh?!?! Crikey, North Carolina has always been home to some of the most creative, bold and bad ass climbers to ever tie into a rope and that was certainly the case in the 70's when there was no shortage of climbers or falling down there that I can remember. How do you think all those bad ass routes got put up?

Healyje wrote: Well, I've logged a lot of hours at trad cliffs taking whips all day and not short sport whippers either. Where I was from bitd, we did occasionally read the phrase, "the leader must not fall" in magazines and could never understand wtf they were talking about and assumed it must be some limp holdover from hemp rope days. We fell all the time. On the six pitch FA I've been doing ground up and onsight I took six 25-footers in a row on a #3 ball nut and a fifty footer on a cam - happens when you're climbing at your limit or a hold breaks (ok, so shit does happen sometimes). And I can hold sport falls all day long with a hip belay without so much as a yawn or the slightest problem. Dogging all day on a hip belay is another matter altogether. As for trying something new; I've never been interested in that particular change as I find clipping bolts boring beyond words and dogging the antithesis of why I climb. I get the [mass] appeal, but it's just not my thing. Also, if I wan't to focus on the movement without fiddling with gear then I'll just TR a line and skip the faux clipping. Well, given most of the dropping is happening with grigris I'd say that last bit is a quite optimistic, if not idealistic, assertion.

Sounds like you do a bit of dogging too, unless you come down and pull the rope after every fall?

After hearing of multiple people who claim they had a brake hand on the rope and still couldnt hold the fall I'd think most folks would just toss their Cinch in the garbage. I certainly would at least retire it to the back of the gear pile.

bearbreeder wrote: there is data ... you just have to look for it ... and not in the Muricas or in INGRISH =P now whether the data is comprehensive enough is a different question, and its open to interpretation of course ... but there is plenty of data out there ;)

so here's what the data say, with a little help from excel...

Tube style belay devices were more likely involved in accidents than grigis. No data on the Cinch. Grigri was the safest device.

The numbers: Tube style devices were used by 56% of the gym climbers but account for 67% of the accidents. The percent of accidents normalized by percent of users = 1.2

In contrast, Grigris were used by 14% of the gym climbers but account for 7% of accidents. The percent of accidents normalized by percent of users = 0.5

here's a table,

Table from beerbreeder's european data stash on belay devices and accidents

"The problem is really rooted in the demographic and how and who gets drawn to the sport."

I love when things get boiled down to generalized "social science" observations. It's nothing more than finger-pointing and negativity towards others. Give me a break. During the explosion of popularity in the 1970s, when climbing was in the news, tons of magazines were coming out, etc, don't you think starry-eyed youngsters and suburban wannabe's started flocking to the sport? They picked up the rope and started just like anyone else. How is the "demographic" today any different from then? These people turned into Lynn Hill, John Bachar, etc (70's-80s stars), -- What group did they come from- Some sort of pre-made mountain magician born from the womb? Then what about Alex Honnold? He was a wide eyed kid from town who showed up at the gym and liked what he saw. Is he one of these "incorrect" folks who is ruining your sport because he can't belay properly?

Those getting drawn into the sport today are fine. People are not out there treating it like a casual walk in the park. Give the climbing community a little credit, damn man.

Billcoe wrote: They were on El Cap not long ago, one was stepping in front to get around the other at the belay, fell off and the Cinch didn't lock up for quite some time. Hands were burnt and teeth were loosened and bloody. The belayer had a rebelay up through a bolt with the rope running up, and was facing out when the climber pitched. I suspect that the Cinch simply was not able to rotate to lock and thus allowed the rope to run. Operator error sure, however, given the skill level, use level and superb training of those guys, it sure as hell gave me pause on using that tool.

That just does not seem like operator error to me. I'm assuming your sport climbing friends know how to catch whippers and know to hold the brake side. They have years of experience with it and climbing with each other. Yet still the cinch failed. It is only an operator error if Trango made it clear that you can't use the Cinch in a certain way and yet they still used it in a manner not officially approved.

If you happened to have the right combination of genes and early ( not-in-your control ) environment that made you a bold climber...If you happened to be born on a date that placed you in an era where there was a lot of uncrowded climbing, etc, etc, etc..In an era when it was just a fact that you had to climb somewhat boldly or you might not be able to climb at all (necessity is the mother of invention, they say..)

Healyje's rants are a perfect illustration of that form of self-delusion perfectly captured in the highly-technical phrase: "Being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple."

Christian wrote:In an era where it was just a fact that you had to climb somewhat boldly or you might not be able to climb at all (necessity is the mother of invention, they say..) Healyje's rants are a perfect illustration of that form of self-delusion perfectly captured in the highly-technical phrase: "Being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple."

I've met enough climbers from his era that pretty much professed "that's just how climbing was BITD" and they mostly only dog their way up (sometimes hard) sport routes. Some think risk from BITD just isn't worth it anymore, for others, the type of things Healyje waxes on about were never the primary motivations. Of course, there's no telling if people like Healyje, if born later into today's climbing world, would find joy in the sport.

Anyway, the Cinch, at least by today's standard, is pretty unsafe. Just like a new car sold today, if not equip w/ front & side airbags, ABS, traction control (& soon), vehicle dynamic control, rear-view camera, etc, is considered unsafe.

JohnnyG wrote: so here's what the data say, with a little help from excel... Tube style belay devices were more likely involved in accidents than grigis. No data on the Cinch. Grigri was the safest device. The numbers: Tube style devices were used by 56% of the gym climbers but account for 67% of the accidents. The percent of accidents normalized by percent of users = 1.2 In contrast, Grigris were used by 14% of the gym climbers but account for 7% of accidents. The percent of accidents normalized by percent of users = 0.5 here's a table,

there is a SLIGHT bias in favor of tube devices in terms of the error/accident rates

on the other hand with the N ~= 1000 ... its likely not statistically significant ....

also if look at "HMS" youll see they have a lower rate as well ... so does that mean we should all use munters in the gym? ....

what the data doesnt account for is possible bias in terms of "experience" ... it could be in those bavarian beer swilling gyms that mostly "expert" belayers use grigris and newbies tubes (which is what happens in my local gyms) ... or other such factors

remember its like those election polls ... small individual break downs lead to high MOE

;)

T Roper wrote: Sounds like you do a bit of dogging too, unless you come down and pull the rope after every fall?

I still come down and and mostly still pull.

Russ Keane wrote:"The problem is really rooted in the demographic and how and who gets drawn to the sport." I love when things get boiled down to generalized "social science" observations. It's nothing more than finger-pointing and negativity towards others. Give me a break.

Nothing about what I've posted is generalizations; they are observations of the profound changes that have taken place in the demographic and the sport. Crikey, what 'climbing' even is has been redefined at a fundamental level and those changes are the explicit cause driving all the dropping that's going on. It's not "finger-pointing" or "negativity"; it's simply a reality and message you don't much like hearing.

Russ Keane wrote:During the explosion of popularity in the 1970s, when climbing was in the news, tons of magazines were coming out, etc, don't you think starry-eyed youngsters and suburban wannabe's started flocking to the sport? They picked up the rope and started just like anyone else. How is the "demographic" today any different from then?

The demographic explosion which we see the result of today is entirely due to the lack of the filtering mechanism which was in place in the 1970's. Back then 'climbing' meant outdoors, real rock and trad and that in and of itself was a fairly relentless filtering mechanism. Very few of the total number of people who tied-in to a rope for the first time in the '70s were still climbing a week, a month or a year later. The risks and consequences were far more palpable and obvious to a first-timer under those circumstances than they are today in a gym which is where the overwhelmingly vast majority of people now first encounter climbing. The prospect of leading trad and the mentoring system then further weeded folks out and most people figured out pretty damn quick on their own that it wasn't for them. That's all entirely gone now and without that filtering in place the demographic is entirely different, subject to mass denial, and Darwin is working overtime at every gym and crag.

Russ Keane wrote:These people turned into Lynn Hill, John Bachar, etc (70's-80s stars), -- What group did they come from- Some sort of pre-made mountain magician born from the womb? Then what about Alex Honnold? He was a wide eyed kid from town who showed up at the gym and liked what he saw.

Climbers like Lynn, John and the like rose to the top of the sport but, due to the filtering mechanism, the ratio of them to the number of total demographic was small compared to today. Now it's much more like gymnastics and the Sharmas and Honolds of today are combed from a comparatively vast demographic, i.e. the ratio of each one of them to the total demographic is huge and they represent outliers to the total demographic much more so than Lynn and John did to the demographic of the day.

Russ Keane wrote:Is he one of these "incorrect" folks who is ruining your sport because he can't belay properly? Those getting drawn into the sport today are fine.

Sure they're all fine people, but quite frankly, many of them don't belong climbing, period. That's because while they are fine humans, most are reliant on autoblockers to do the belaying, operate under an illusion that what they are doing is essentially risk-free entertainment, and aren't in any way prepared to deal with the cold reality of climbing gone bad. The result is, as a pool, they represent a random number generator for dropping each other.

Russ Keane wrote:People are not out there treating it like a casual walk in the park. Give the climbing community a little credit, damn man.

Au contraire - the majority are operating in a fog of illusion and treating it not only casually, but also like it's just another social entertainment option. And if the bolts and grigris disappeared overnight then either 85% of the "community" would evaporate tomorrow, or, there would be a constant stream of ambulances going to and from all the gyms and venues. Credit where it's due and all the dropping is just a symptom of that highly deniable reality.

Christian wrote:In an era when it was just a fact that you had to climb somewhat boldly or you might not be able to climb at all (necessity is the mother of invention, they say..) Healyje's rants are a perfect illustration of that form of self-delusion perfectly captured in the highly-technical phrase: "Being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple."

True. I was lucky enough to start climbing somewhere obscure where everything we touched was an FA, but the bottom line is we still had to climb each and every one of them. And I do absolutely love the wordsmithing of "somewhat boldly" which for all practical purposes is basically what all climbing was prior to bolts, gyms and sport - hence the relentless filtering mechanism of the day.

reboot wrote: I've met enough climbers from his era that pretty much professed "that's just how climbing was BITD" and they mostly only dog their way up (sometimes hard) sport routes.

That on the other hand is a grand and sweeping attempt at generalization.

reboot wrote:Some think risk from BITD just isn't worth it anymore, for others, the type of things Healyje waxes on about were never the primary motivations.

Exactly, couldn't have said it better myself. Those risks, however, were not and are not "from BITD", but rather fully available and no different today wherever there are unbolted rocks. And while you can bolt a bunch of the explicit risk into oblivion, you unfortunately can only mask and deny all the other implicit risks so as not to ruffle the illusion of safety which allows you to focus on all those things which do interest you. But the en masse shying away from explicit risk with the accompanying denial of implicit risk is exactly what turns the demographic into a random dropping generator - i.e. there is no free lunch or risk-free climbing.

reboot wrote:Of course, there's no telling if people like Healyje, if born later into today's climbing world, would find joy in the sport.

I find joy every time I go out; I just do a different sport than you. I view it rather like caving - we both use ropes and go up and down, but that's about where the similarity ends.

reboot wrote:Anyway, the Cinch, at least by today's standard, is pretty unsafe. Just like a new car sold today, if not equip w/ front & side airbags, ABS, traction control (& soon), vehicle dynamic control, rear-view camera, etc, is considered unsafe.

And hence why the days of cars not letting you drive are about upon us - can computerized belaying be far behind? It surely couldn't be less reliable than what's going on today (hint: the devices are not the problem).

Healyje wrote: Now it's much more like gymnastics and the Sharmas and Honolds of today are combed from a comparatively vast demographic, i.e. the ratio of each one of them to the total demographic is huge and they represent outliers to the total demographic much more so than Lynn and John did to the demographic of the day.

It has nothing to do with the likes of John Gill, Tony Yaniro, Ben Moon, Wolfgang Gullich, or even the Anderson Bros that evolved the style & training aspects the sport? That the commonplace 5.13 gear sends & 5.14 bolted sends by the working stiffs of today is just a function of demographics? That guys like Steve Hong that can send as hard today as during his prime is just a function of them being late peakers? That the Caldwell "jr", Siegrist "jr"s that vastly out climbs their parents must then be some sort of super climbing mutation of genetics?

reboot wrote: It has nothing to do with the likes of John Gill, Tony Yaniro, Ben Moon, Wolfgang Gullich, or even the Anderson Bros that evolved the style & training aspects the sport? That the commonplace 5.13 gear sends & 5.14 bolted sends by the working stiffs of today is just a function of demographics? That guys like Steve Hong that can send as hard today as during his prime is just a function of them being late peakers?

You're kidding yourself. The "5.13 gear sends & 5.14 bolted sends by the working stiffs" is another delusion - it may happen a lot, but it's still an incredibly small percentage of the total demographic. And style and training are two entirely different things. The training thing is just something which appeals to certain personalities; there's plenty of people who pull just as hard without any formalized training at all.

As for the juniors, we all climb on the shoulders of those who came before us - that some of those people are your parents is that much of a leg up. So is starting earlier in many cases. But, without the upfront filtering mechanism, it's still the case today's top climbers are surfacing from a comparatively huge sieve.

Healyje wrote:And hence why the days of cars not letting you drive are about upon us - can computerized belaying be far behind?

Well, cars are inherently much safer/faster/more efficient than cars from even 10 years ago. And even race car drivers from the pinnacle of the sport perform much better with the aforementioned electronic aides. If driving and belaying are merely means to an end, I really don't mind technology improve their functionalities.

reboot wrote: Well, cars are inherently much safer/faster/more efficient than cars from even 10 years ago.

Bummer we can't say the same thing about the drivers.