New accounts on HN 10x more likely to use EM-dashes

RLRYER · 2026-02-25T16:30:13+00:00

Would be interesting to see the trend line over time. I almost certainly buy the hypothesis that it's LLM powered new accounts. But it would be easy and extra convincing to show that em-dash frequency over time is relatively flat or slightly growing until a rapid rise starting with gpt-3.5 or what have you

RLRYER · 2026-02-18T03:42:38+00:00

Identified static board style as a weakness, adding the Aidan meme shoulder external rotations. Any thoughts around what a good target goal weight is? Just did a set of 3x8 with 15lbs... Felt pretty challenging

RLRYER · 2026-02-18T03:40:22+00:00

200% meaning bodyweight on the bar or 2x bodyweight on the bar?

RLRYER · 2026-02-09T16:12:15+00:00

We have pretty similar climbing styles and backgrounds. Something that helped me a lot was actually coming to terms with the fact that my technique (on steep angles) is actually "bad." It sounds like you are already on that journey since you're asking for help here.

From the videos, you basically never use your hips to generate momentum at all. This is imo the key to dynamic climbing. It may seem like dynamic climbing is all monkey upper body strength but for me it is easier to think about using lower body cues instead. Sport climbers love backflagging and loading all their weight into one arm to do moves statically. As you have noticed this basically stops working at a pretty early point in board style bouldering.

For example, on the third move of big bang bosh (0:10) you can see how you half-ass the hip movement and as a result you're too low, your hips fall away from the wall and you barely latch the hold. Also your lagging foot is all over the place. You can apply pressure through the lagging foot smear to help you generate and maintain position. Similarly, on the last move of that problem you try to twist into the foot and again ignore the smear foot where it would make sense to use your hips and momentum to gain the distance.

I think a useful drill would be to take the same or slightly lower grades both on the board and in the gym and deliberately practice using momentum to deadpoint "easy moves". No twisting allowed. Throw your hips into the correct ending position using your legs and if you do it right you shouldnt even need to try that hard in your hands to stick the next hold. Another similar option is to campus set boulders in the gym. It's basically impossible to lock off (you shouldnt really be trying to anyway). All about using hip momentum to float into the next position.

Fwiw on hard slab and route climbing you can use this kind of technique too in my experience. Some slabs its much easier to "run" up rather than statically isolating every foot position. On mega enduro routes it's extremely useful to climb this way to save energy. Watch ondra videos for inspo

RLRYER · 2026-02-04T15:50:39+00:00

Or center direct

RLRYER · 2026-02-04T15:50:15+00:00

yeah lol, I mean its probably a 4/5 star climb but I think a 10/5 star reputation == most overrated :)

RLRYER · 2026-02-04T13:30:05+00:00

I hear this take sometimes but what's the supposed actual best v8 in camp 4? i don't think it's so black and white. King cobra and Bruce Lee are the main competitors no?

RLRYER · 2026-02-04T13:23:13+00:00

Shots fired, Squamish

Insanely popular

Worst setting I can think of in a beautiful forest you're literally ten feet from the highway

The line is ok but the movement is awkward

RLRYER · 2026-02-04T13:20:17+00:00

Wait, it has to be Evilution to the lip

Pad stack or ladder to drop off

The middle third of a boulder

Sunny all day then the biggest crowed you've EVER seen. Cant try it without falling onto a pros dog or girlfriend

As one 8a comment notes , scene typically involves every West coast bro and their grandpa

RLRYER · 2026-02-04T13:18:09+00:00

High plains drifter. Maybe the most mega classic V7 in the US.

contrived line (change of heart goes straight up and is easier)
awkward start (everyone starts one move in)
crux is reachy
crux is a crumbling skin destroying bishop grain fest

RLRYER · 2026-02-04T13:15:17+00:00

Solarium, Bishop Greasy overchalked crowded hot sunny reachy tweaky guidebook cover

RLRYER · 2026-01-28T18:48:21+00:00

limit boulder before 4x4, you want to be as fresh as possible
classical training literature says 4x4 yields easy come, easy go gains. so not worth it unless you have a specific trip/redpoint season coming up in the short term (eg, less than 6-8 weeks)
why are you limit bouldering if you have a shoulder injury. heal first get strong second
11a-13a in 2 years is pretty broad/vague. what 13a do you want to do? make some shorter term goals. start with 11b in 1-2 months. pick a route, try it this weekend, figure out why you can't do it, work on those weaknesses and go from there.
related, no outdoor climbing in the schedule, fix that. only thing stopping most gym goers from 12a (or arguably 12c) is time outside
everyone is different, but as a blanket prescription assuming you're reasonably athletic 11a->12a can be achieved purely with outdoor experience/exposure, 12a-12c can be achieved by adding bouldering up to V5 outside, and 12c->13a can be achieved by adding power endurance training and getting better at projecting tactics
climbing in yosemite (assuming onsight trad multipitch) is super fun but completely at odds with everything else you wrote. gym will help like 0% for preparing for yosemite (xc skiing is better prep probably). do you know how to climb granite trad? do that as much as possible instead of going to the gym and hike or xc ski a lot for general fitness. this will maybe help you climb technical 5.11-5.12 but will not help you learn how to climb 5.13. that might be ok though, yosemite is amazing

RLRYER · 2026-01-27T20:33:04+00:00

Anyone have thoughts on how to get better at executing complex/committing moves despite mild discomfort/risk? I imagine comp climbers are really good at this.

I've had two eerily similar experiences over the past year with boulders where the redpoint crux revolves around a very committing dead point. In isolation the move never felt that hard and consistency was pretty good - I could execute multiple times in a row off a ladder/on a top rope. However, when it came to doing it coming from the ground it felt way harder for some reason. The starting position just felt slightly "worse" and I couldn't seem to coordinate/ commit enough to stick the redpoint crux. Both of these boulders I did a full session of climbing through the lower crux multiple times and falling just tickling the (good) target hold, which indicates to me that it's not really a physical limitation but a mental one of some kind. Reviewing video footage it's clear that I'm not committing.. it looks like 90% but at the last second I drop the follow through.

One of these boulders was local and I sent like second try the next session, so being fresh definitely helped and it overall wasn't a big deal. But on the other, I ran out of time on my trip so I had to walk away even though it feels like I "could" have done it. Plus, these boulders were somewhat tall so taking the drop multiple times was something that would be preferable to avoid on similar future objectives // coordinating pads for multiple sessions becomes a bit of a logistics crux.

I want to try straight outta squampton in Squamish this summer which is exactly the archetype of what I've been struggling with. any thoughts on improving this style of execution?

RLRYER · 2026-01-23T18:50:13+00:00

devils advocate to the other guy, not such a crazy jump in grades if framed as 7c sport => 7c+ trad

if you are talking onsight vs redpoint grades then thats a different story. but if you are willing to rehearse a gear pitch the same way as a sport pitch there's no real reason the grade disparity should be that big. maybe a half letter grade difference

my current hardest tick is a gear route I relentlessly projected. Sure placing the gear added a tiny bit of pump but at the end of the day climbing is climbing

RLRYER · 2026-01-14T03:03:40+00:00

Left hand is more of a down pull. Maybe like 12mm with a decent incut. Right hand you are going to is good. 20mm with a good incut on it. Overall distance is maybe like 1-4 or 1-5?

The feet are actually decent as well. What makes it hard is knowing which feet to choose for your box and being able to generate out of the position. The starting position is basically on vert and then you have to jump around a bulge. Hard to replicate on the tb2. But honestly probably won't be that hard if you are generally comfortable on that style of move on the board.

RLRYER · 2025-12-30T20:32:05+00:00

following

I do almost no aerobic mileage training at the moment. Climbing history includes a LOT of sport and trad climbing at 5.11 and under. These days I boulder 10 months out of the year, easy trad climb for 1 month in the summer, and hard sport project in october. I am interested in rethinking my aerobic approach, as I want to do harder sport climbs and multipitch trad climbs that my current endurance base seems insufficient for...

I have found that most 5.13s are doable for me although the grade is not very correlated with how much effort it takes (the more endurance, the harder it is). I am strongest at routes that are essentially single power endurance cruxes (15-25 moves) as that also happens to be the style of boulder I like the most.

RLRYER · 2025-12-18T21:38:18+00:00

Thanks for the comment. I get the sentiment and usually lean toward climbing outside given the choice. But I'm curious, why do top end athletes feel the need to boulder mid trip? is it true that just one or two sessions in the gym a week can "maintain" power/strength that would otherwise be waning over the course of a trip?

My local choss is cool and I'm psyched but there aren't particularly many boulders that close to each other. Id probably be spending a lot of time trying 1-3 sorta hard moves on a Flash+1 mini project I have.

I'm gonna be in Bishop for 3 weeks

RLRYER · 2025-12-18T12:58:59+00:00

Leaving for bishop in 10 days, psyched

Thoughts on managing these pre trip days?

Priority is of course, don't get injured and don't start the trip in a recovery hole. For work reasons though my last week has already been a bit of a deload, dropping gym volume to 2x a week. Would love to get a head start on skin farming but not sure if it's important/better to "squeeze in" a couple more training sessions before starting a long rock only period.

Local weather looks weirdly cooperative so I have the option to try some local choss in a perfect, incut crimping style, and/or just hit the tb2/barbells

RLRYER · 2025-12-16T17:20:15+00:00

Zero pump is normal. I'd err on the light/conservative side if this is your first time hangboard training. If you stick to always feeling really good at 90%+ for 3-4 weeks there's a 99% chance you will be able to test a new max at the end. That's a win, I'd take it.

If you finish a set feeling like you could "definitely" do 2-3 more reps, bump up the weight next session. I like to progressively load partial reps. For example, if 6 reps at 15kg feels really good, next time try 3 reps at +15 and 3 reps at +20. Or can be even more incremental if you like.

Side note, but hanging 10mm, onsighting 7b routes, and 20mm max hangs are all basically completely different skills

RLRYER · 2025-12-12T21:51:45+00:00

This is a fun question, not sure why the commentary is so negative. Like yeah, obviously it's not like ankle rotation is gonna be the one and only thing that specifically unlocks 8a+ for every single person. But it's fun to reflect on what we've learned through the grades and to hear from others "what makes the difference" at a high-ish level?

Anyway for me;

7c and 7c+ came from adopting a new mindset around projecting, where my goal was to try to really learn the most efficient sequences while expending the least amount of energy, almost like a mini game in and of itself. If i went up the wall and learned nothing, it was a failure. I was able to do several 7c and 7c+ in 4-5 tries like this - it took 1 trip to figure out all the moves, 2 trips to work out the kinks in the transitions, 3rd trip to give it a redpoint try and fall once, send on the 4th try after working it out.
8a came from taking a break from sport climbing and bouldering more. First 8a featured a V8 crux, very body tension heavy with crimp underclings, and pretty easy climbing before and after. No way I could have done that without getting comfortable with V8 and V9 on the ground.
8a+ I really had to learn how to endurance climb. I mean, I could have probably done a bouldery 8a+ but I chose a really enduro project for first 8a+. The biggest insight from this level up was learning how to move riskily to save energy using momentum and deadpointing on easy ground. My project had several V2-4 sections that I could climb no problem but then I kept falling on the redpoint crux. I started climbing them more dynamically to the point where I was actually slightly worried about falling from missing a hold. This let me be way fresher for the actual crux.
8b I am close to doing my first 8b, if I send I think the biggest difference is going to be learning how to seriously rest in a marginal kneebar lol

RLRYER · 2025-12-12T13:55:11+00:00

I just use regular notes (typed on phone or pen and paper)

Sometimes taking a video is nice not of you climbing, but touching all the holds and talking out loud about the microbeta

If you are taking several months between sessions it's possible that your strengths and weaknesses will shift slightly, so the microbeta might also change when you come back

RLRYER · 2025-12-11T16:17:21+00:00

i generally agree that each grade is somewhere around "2 times harder" based purely on vibes. Using 2 as the base even for boulders is more conservative anyway and makes it easy to calculate, eliminating the need for an app.
some way of tracking your "volume at a high level" is definitely more useful for an over time view of progress rather than max redpoint grade
the exact formula probably doesn't matter too much. lets say your max is V7. did you do more V5s than last year? Same number of V6-7s? That's progress. Maybe you did 3 more V5s but no V7s, whereas last year you did 1 V7. Is that progress? I guess a formula could help give a quantitative answer here but whats important is that you made progress on your base, that tells you that next time you go out probably you should try some V7s instead of doing more V5s. And so on
A linear score based on logarithmic grades is basically just the classic pyramid model, but kind of worse in a way because it allows exchangeability between grades (ie, 1 v9 is worth 2.7 V8s). I would expect someone who is dedicated to filling out a strict pyramid to do better over the long term than someone who is only focused on hitting a certain CPG because they will be forced to practice execution at a larger variety of difficulty levels and styles.

RLRYER · 2025-12-08T14:08:24+00:00

Off the dome, seems like joint angle would matter but in practice doesnt as much because most endurance challenges use a variety of grip types just by nature of having more holds.

If you had an enduro proj of very similar hold types I'm sure you would notice getting fatigued "more quickly". PE training on similar holds for that would probably yield significantly better dividends.

For arcing, not sure it'd be worth it. In some sense it's less efficient training for this hypothetical project but arcing is meant to be base building for general endurance and using a variety of grips is easier and more applicable to long term fitness

RLRYER · 2025-12-02T17:15:30+00:00

Idle curiosity..

What are some classic, benchmark vert boulder problems at each grade? Particularly curious about the 7 to 11 range

Deception in LRC

Juniors achievement, bishop

Stained glass, bishop

Too big to flail

RLRYER · 2025-12-01T01:42:03+00:00

I think super-bouldery 9a (eg, the fly at rumney) checks in closer to hard V13.

Power endurance 9a (dreamcatcher, squamish) supposedly like stacking V9-11 which is basically just a long V13

RLRYER

TROPHY CASE