RRC Archives

Just what is the impact of hanging the draws?

Trick question! Good one Art

What if I hang my draws in the first go, and send in the second go, with draws already hung?

I am curious about the argument for why the ability to send does not depend on whether the draws are on the wall.

This post does not forward always hanging the draws when attempting a send. I love to sport climb. There is no way I would lobby for that kind of rigor.

I worded the poll to democratize the question, so no matter what grade you climb you can still participate; however, perhaps as the grade goes up the cost of hanging the draws on send also goes up. That is if one believes there is a cost to hanging the draws.

lena_chita wrote:What if I hang my draws in the first go, and send in the second go, with draws already hung?

Then the ability so send, Ps is
Ps = Pn(1 + Θ + β) + δ
Where
_ Pn = probability based on native ability.
_ Θ = effect of draws on (some here are arguing that this number should be zero
_ β = effect of knowledge about the moves (nobody should be arguing for this factor being zero).
_ δ = a fudge factor to account how rested one is, for the sake of argument we need to zero this out, it is only here because someone will likely bring this up. Hypothetically the climber is at the same physical state at each try.

I don't think you should compare max send hanging draws to max send, though, because of the variance of difficulty hanging draws on different routes within each grade. I bet that at any 5.xx level there are routes out there that a max 5.xx climber could send while hanging the draws. Whether or not that climber has done so is a matter of whether he has been on any of those routes, did he sent first go of the day, did someone else hang draws first, does he care, etc.

We have to go with our feels on this one, imo. Feels like a letter grade to me on average.

Θ - I don't think anybody should be arguing for this factor being zero either. It may vary wildly per route / climber and for some people may not have ever effected them enough to notice a grade change. However, just the fact that you have a little more weight on you for at least 90% of the route has to increase the amount of work you have to do, because gravity. Arguably if this was the only affect most people would never notice it affect their abilities. However, this is a fact that is pretty much impossible to argue against, unless you want to argue against gravity. All the rest of the factors such as height differences, ease of clipping / hanging draws are much more subjective, but are also the effects that really make big enough differences for people to notice letter grade differences in abilities.

do i understand this? --for all the people who vote no difference they've never climbed a toprope on a harder climb than there lead limit? i mean a slightly different question but doesn't that make the assertion of 'no diff' seem incredible?

Yes, of course, I think people are being silly to argue for Θ = 0 or so near zero that one can round it down to zero without a statistically significant effect on the probability of sending. I can see where it might be difficult to sort the math between β and Θ if the climber usually hangs the draws.
I think there are quite a few of these peculiar notions in the climbing community.

clif wrote:do i understand this? --for all the people who vote no difference they've never climbed a toprope on a harder climb than there lead limit? i mean a slightly different question but doesn't that make the assertion of 'no diff' seem incredible?

I actually don't find this incredible at all, especially if we are talking about bolted routes. I have never sent on a toprope a climb harder than the grade I was willing to lead. Not since the first season I started climbing. Not even close. I have seconded cleanly some trad lines that I have no desire or intention to lead, but they were nowhere near my best sport redpoint grade (and nowhere near my best trad lead, for that matter).

But I see a big difference between sending while hanging draws, and sending with pre-hung draws. The only people who assert that there is no difference are the people who are basically onsight climbers, e.i. they never work on redpointing anything, they climb everything 1st go, and then walk away, whether they sent it, or not. And they usually climb routes that are not very overhung.

If you are a person who works on redpointing (and by that I mean that your hardest redpoint is at least 2-4 grades above your hardest flash) then almost by definition you will have 2-4 letter grades between the route you sent while hanging draws, and the hardest route you have redpointed. It is very rare that you would redpoint 1st go of the day, while hanging draws, a hard-for-you route that you have spent multiple days working. It can happen, but it is by no means a norm for anyone I know.

Oh, and of course YMMV depending on whether we are talking overhanging RRG routes, vs. vertical routes. And of course many overhanging routes were bolted with the long sling in mind.

And finally, I have my short card ready to pull out, if anyone wants to examine it.