SA climbing rankings

[Stijn]

SA Mountain Mag has started their own SA climbing rankings similar to www.8a.nu. So head over to

http://www.samountainmag.com/ranking/index.php

and register so we can get this thing working properly! The more climbers involved in the rankings, the more reflective it will be of the actual pecking order.. They're only accepting sends in 2005 at the moment.

[Fool]

Yes more people should register...

I was just wondering how the scoring system works. On the 8a.nu rankings it is only your top ten routes/boulders that count.... this seems to solve the problem of (as currently seen on the RSA ranking) climber A who has done twenty 18's being rated higher than climber B whose ONLY done say four 30's????? some thing must be wrong...

Although the way i like to view any of these ranking systems is as a means of keeping a record of your personal achievements and comparisons with other climbers is only a secondary advantage.

oh and there are many realy strong climbers in the country that do not even bother looking at these rankings...... there is always some one bigger, better, stronger, faster....

[Confused?]

What was wrong with the 8A system?

[ClimbZA]

Nothing wrong with the 8a system

See the Climb ZA home page for the South African 8a rankings!
Isn’t it better that we rank ourselves internationally and compare ourselves with the world instead of just local?

[Eugene]

Hi I Agree with fool.

I found the site on friday and thought it was a pretty good idiea. As I could find no gidelines for what routes to enter Exept that it had to be climed in this year. I just went all out and threw all of them in there (still a couple missing though). After checking the rankings, after a while I found myself lying relatively high. So I stopped.

How does the ranking system work?

Should I take the routes off and leave only the ten best ones?

Some Gidelines would be apreciated.

Thanks fool. Was waiting for someone to complain

[Fool]

No you shouldn't have to take any routes off.... the ranking system should automatically add the scores of only your top ten red points.

Hey Eugene, you should register at 8a.nu and put in every single route you have ever redpointed.... it will be a good comparison between the two ranking systems.

Also I completely agree with ClimbZA we should rather use a system (8a.nu) where we can see how we rank internationally.

[Stijn]

No, there's nothing wrong with the 8a.nu system but I think loads of SA climbers are put off by the french grading system as they don't want to go through all the conversion issues, etc. Having an SA ranking with SA grades removes this problem completely!

There is still a lot of confusion on 8a.nu with the SA climbers and what the conversion actually is. The conversion table on this site (ClimbZA) has long been accepted as the correct conversion chart by most but some people are even using australian grades, etc. I also spoke to some german climbers (the guys who rode here on their bikes from Europe) who have climbed all over the world and they recon it's more like:

19 - 6a
20 - 6a+
21 - 6b
22 - 6b+
23 - 6c and 6c+
24 - 7a
25 - 7a+
26 - 7b
27 - 7b+
28 - 7c
29 - 7c+
30 - 8a

etc.

The only difference being that the 23 grade covers both 6c and 6c+ instead of the 26 grade covering both 7a+ and 7b.

I have never climbed overseas myself, so I'm just basing this on other people's opinions.

I'd also like to know what the scoring system is on the SA Mountain Mag website and I think the \"top 10 climbs in the last 12 months\" thing is a good way to go.

[JonoJ]

I've always wondered about something with 8a.nu, and now with SAMountain Mag's ranking system, ... when it comes to multipitch routes, should one list each pitch separately?

Any opinions?

[Grigri]

I suppose you coud list pitches but it starts getting a bit sstoopid. Maybe just put in a comment about the seriousness? I kinda feel that bigger adventures are best recorded in your memory and not reduced to some numbers in a stat chart.

[JonoJ]

Ja s'true...I guess it would get a bit messy. Didn't check if there was a comments field for each route added.

Not that I'm points-bedondered, but it would make sense though that a four pitcher for instance, earns a couple more points than a single pitch route of equal grade.

[Fool]

Ja just add a multipitch as one route and put a comment.... 8a ranking has space for comments and the SA ranking doesn't.

But as must of us agree its not about the points!!! Couple of extra points for the extra piches would be in order.

(some fool on the 8a ranking even adds ''problems\" the he did in gyms.... thats very sad)