Rock climbing and the economics of innovation
softmachines.org
softmachines.org
One other aspect I think it omitted, likely to balance brevity with scope, is about standard deviations.
When you only have the most rich and privileged doing a sport (e.g. travelling to summit mountains) the "best" will be selected from a relatively small pool of candidates. As an activity gains popularity, and as more people have the means to pursue it, the pool of people for "best" grows and it's no surprise that the max of the distribution increases.
There world's population has grown 2x since 1957 when El Capitan was first submitted. The number of people doing fitness in their free time, I'd suspect is up 10x or 100x. This is double true for activities like Chess or Olympic sports where nation states have started searching for talent in wider and wider ways.
The campus board was only invented in 1988 by Wolfgang Güllich while he was training for Action Directe. Now there's one hanging in every gym in the world.
And I think Lynn Hill has said that one of the things that made her first free ascent of the Nose possible was new climbing gyms, that let her train more intensively than was possible before.
So yeah, as the sport grows we also get more gyms, which further grows the pool of potential record breakers to those who can't travel as much.
I was skeptical at first on these freshly new shoes vendors, but when I tried out their products, it's on-par quality with the existing vendors. Even more, often time, these newcomers has far durable product than the traditional vendors.
My guess is, traditional vendors aimed for the too high end product and losing the durability. They aimed for the high friction and more natural naked foot feeling, resulting their sole ever softer rubber and thinner. Usual climbing shoes sole has 4mm thick. But these high end product go as thin as 2.5mm.
If your weight isn't less than 50kg, you'll wear it out in 3 month.
My other complaint for a particular famous Italian climbing shoes vendor is, that they don't use strong glue. Perhaps, Italia is less humid than Japan so their glue doesn't need to be that strong, but this particular Italian-made shoes has serious issues on their glue so the shoes start to disassemble itself before the sole wear out.
But I'm not sure this is really a trend overall; there are still plenty of high-end shoes from Scarpa, La Sportiva, etc. with thicker rubber.
Definitely great to see all of the new entrants though. It's amazing how much climbing shoes have evolved even in just the past decade.
But for a casual climber like me whose best grade is 3級(Japanese grade standard, equivalent of 6a+/6b or V3) and climb once per week in a indoor gym, it's a diminishing return.
I want my shoes to be durable enough for at least 9 months. The resole is cheaper but necessary effort for the resole(bring shoes to the resole service, negotiating how I would like to be resoled) is a quite hassle for me. So I'd rather buy a new shoes.
They're great, but like yourself, I'm not a pro, or a prospective pro, I do it for fun, and health. I'm not going to pay $200 every 4 months for a new pair, or even resole.
I go through 2 pairs of shoes per year, being heavy and climbing a lot. I don't sweat the cost at all, and tend to just buy 3-4 pairs whenever I notice them go on sale at barrabes or wherever.
All in, climbing is just about the cheapest sport you could ask for. Especially as a boulderer. Add in $8/month for a giant sack of chalk and $300 every 10 years for a new giant pad and you're set.
My favorites shoes are resoled shoes from said Italian vendor. Wonderful once they've got good glue on em
Now, if you go to the mall on a cold day every second yuppie is wearing a jacket from one of the big climbing apparel retailers. Initially they were motivated purely by utility, fashion played no role in their design choices.
If you buy a puffy or a goretex jacket from a non-climbing company it may appear technical, but they're just not as well made.
This isn't because the mass market started buying climbing apparel; it's because North Face, Columbia, Patagonia, decided to leverage their brand into the mainstream. You can now buy all manner of cotton citywear with a cool outdoorsy chic from any of these brands, and they're probably making 10X more money. But I wouldn't assume folks are buying more actual climbing apparel.
Whether this dilutes the brands long-term is something we'll see in another decade or two.
Even when traditional vendors like 5.10 were really pushing the limits of sole thickness with stuff like their "Project" (2mm sole and unlined upper - my favorite performance shoe ever) they didn't seem to abandon the lower performance/more durable side of the market. Also, durability vs performance is a pretty reasonable tradeoff to make, as long as people who can't take advantage of the high-end shoe aren't getting mislead into buying them. Same thing with ropes - offering an 8.9mm isn't a sign a company doesn't care about durability, it just means they're selling gear to climbers who want to be on one side of the performance/durability tradeoff.
(edit: Also, not to sound preachy, but if you're having rubber-wear issues at a casual level of climbing/training, work on your foot technique! You'll climber harder, use less energy, and save money on resoles! My favorite exercise for that is long gym traverses during which I focus on making as little noise with my feet as possible.)
Take shoes. Here's what the brand new Scarpa Instinct looked like nine years ago:
https://www.climbing.com/gear/new-and-notable-scarpa-instinc...
Notice the tiny scrap of rubber they stuck on to the top of the thing. That was revolutionary at the time. Today, that rubber takes over the whole upper surface of the shoe. Here's a pair of mine in action last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcN3WETCDzM
Trust me, I tried that problem quite a bit harder back before rubber-topped shoes came into vogue, and there was no holding that toe hook. The method of the day was to use your heel, which was, well, harder.
If you check out the shoe range of just that one company, you'll find that this is like their fifth most technical shoe. Kept around because old timers like me still like them.
That's a beautiful line!
And also Alex is the very definition of an Outlier. Everything kind of came together.
But yes, TC Pros are great.
More people, more scale, more chances at finding prodigious talent.
The technology really is the same in both the speed climb and the solo,; the ability to catch long falls without much human intervention is the big deal in being able to rehearse the moves at a point where they can be done "safely".
You can try to divorce technique (knowledge) from technology, but how we use a tool is so much of what a tool is.
It's also amazing that even before some of these innovations (dynamic rope, cams) how many people were able to climb incredibly tough routes. The technology has opened the sport to people who enjoy the it but aren't so interested in risking their lives on a second-by-second basis.
And as an aside, having climbed the Salathe route featured in the Free Solo movie, I can't even begin to imagine the mindset you would need to consider climbing it without protection.
Pete Whitaker's 1 day solo, free ascent of Freerider, the same route that Honnold free solo'd in just a few hours.
Previous discussion regarding the blogpost referred to in this article:
My dad likes to visit the same coffee shop every morning, where he sees more or less the same people. He likes to show his friends pictures of his son on big routes in Yosemite or the Andes, preferring the ones with dangling-portaledge or freezing thousand-yard-stare shock value. They almost invariably ask, "does he get paid for this?" I ask him how he restrains himself from asking, "have you ever done anything for fun?"
One of them recently was sailing around BC looking for new sea to summit ascents.
There's essentially no hope that their activities will yield them any money.
Spending money and doing things will always be more fun than earning money. People earn money to spend it on pursuits like rock climbing, even if climbing the rock itself is free, buying the equipment and taking time off to climb it costs money, so those extraordinary things were done thanks to an earlier motivation to make money.
While you're right that making money helps people live an easier life more able to do extraordinary things, climbing culture exemplifies those extraordinary things are possible without it. Much of the development of modern climbing was done with almost no money.
Read Steve Roper's "Camp 4".
Anyhow, most of the climbers I've known were more well to do. It's like ski bums vs. skiers.
There's a great great movie about him that came out a year ago.
Post War America was a time of relative easy living, especially if you were born in America, white, and a man (and were dodging the draft, too!)
However, compared to a lot of other sports that are complex and require a significant amount of equipment, climbing culture is a lot more weary of throwing money at the problem. Critically, a lot of serious climbers are willing to trade more money for more time climbing by selecting less-traditional careers or focusing less on corporate ladder-climbing.
I see it more that adult life is delayed, since there's the opportunity and privilege to delay it. It's kinda rich kids acting like their poor kids, 'cause that's kind of a cool thing to do.
Not everyone of course, but those $100,000 tricked out vans don't pay for themselves. Lots of career folk do roll those out on weekends, but some of those are owned by twenty-somethings. In the minority, you see some people scraping by.
Wut? Not expensive compared to what exactly? You know climbers are leaving material behind in mountains and trips themselves are expensive?
Why would "fit into backpack" be an argument for why something is cheap?
Most of this stuff (aside from the rope) will last for many years. Occasionally I'll lose a cam out climbing which is $50-80 to replace, but only happens a few times a season.
Compare this to skiing or mountain biking and you can see how climbing is a vastly cheaper sport.
Sometimes you have to sling a tree or rock in order to rappel. Sometimes gear gets stuck and you have to move on. Sometimes you drop gear by accident.
Regardless, any leisure time at all is a privilege. Working-class and poor people largely don't have time or money to do _anything_ at all, climbing or otherwise.
I also think you're putting a little too much value on 'adult life'. We can and should work on allowing more people from more diverse socio-economic backgrounds to enjoy more leisure time, not criticize the people that can.
The freewheeling artist/hippy lifestyle of that time period was probably partially encouraged by how strong our economy was. Almost anyone could take the "risk" of dropping out of the workforce for a time to explore their spiritual side.
A white dude in his 30s with a high school diploma in the 70s-80s still had plenty of opportunity to jump into the workforce and start down the road to home ownership and family life.
So no, I don't think it is played out at all.
At the time Rock climbing was also a pretty social experience for me. I derived joy from talking about it with others — and some people can talk about their passions in a way that helps others feel inspired. That’s a good thing I think.
Now I don’t do it anymore — but a part of me is sad that I don’t because it reflects a decrease in my motivation and “psyche” for rock climbing and decrease in my desire to share that “psyche” with others.
Rock climbing started with quite modest pioneers and was quickly joined by a lot of impoverished people. Their stories are easily found.
Even now with an industry spawned and high dollar protective and performance equipment available, the barrier to entry is very accessible, even more so if you live near outdoor areas that don't require an admittedly increasing gym membership.
But your example is only if you only boulder indoors. Costs add up quickly if you want to move outdoors and want the flexibility to do a variety of climbs.
You can easily have a couple thousand dollars in gear.
Harness $70 Belay device $20-150 Rope $150+ (possibly multiple) Quickdraws $10-14 each, you probably want a dozen or so. Some slings Some carabiners
That'll get you outside and working on bolted routes.
Then you get into climbs that don't have man made bolts that you can clip into (trad climbing).
Each piece of protection at this level costs $60-80 new, and you'll probably want like 10 of them at least.
And it goes on and on.
I have a pretty nice trad rack, but most of the time I could get by with shoes, harness, belay device, etc. just because I'm typically climbing with other folks.
If you're learning to climb, then you really don't need the equipment beyond personal stuff at all because your partners will have it.
Like, I haven't had to use my rack for about the last 3 months just because the guy I was climbing with liked his better.
Not to mention that I have cams in my rack from the 90s... a lot of this stuff lasts a very long time and has a reasonable used market.
IME, it is way cheaper than, say, lift-serviced skiing or golfing.
It's like anything else, you could spend a lot. You could also live in your car and still afford to do this stuff.
The reward after doing a tough route is just incredible.
As much as my comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek, I don't mean to say you shouldn't do it because it's basic ;). I've been climbing for many many years and agree that it's extremely fun and rewarding. That doesn't change with more people enjoying it (but also stay home so I can get the good routes to myself ;) ).
My hair are short on the sides and parted side on the top.
I am an Indian in tech, who got a masters in CS and will be on an H1b.
I might end up being basic, but as long as I do it out of my own free will, and not due to anyone else forcing it.....I can be at peace with myself.
> (but also stay home so I can get the good routes to myself
Sunday afternoon is it. I have been trying to go in the morning, but never wake up early enough.
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We don't have as much climbing where I live, but we have a lot of cyclists, and yes, they're vocal.
I don't think the companys are innovative. There are so many things you could better and safer than todays gear.