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Gene
climber
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What I enjoyed about watching the Huber run yesterday was all the good vibes in EC Meadow. People were cheering, carrying on, sharing adult beverages, smokes of various flavors, chatting, in general, just hanging out and watching an awesome display of skill, power and competence. Sharing Bloody Marys and binoculars with new friends from the Czech Republic. BSing with folks just down from the Big Stone. Meeting Tom at the bridge. Thomas’s sh#t eating grin a few hours after he and Alex got back to the bridge and had rehydrated with King Cobras. It was a very entertaining day – time well spent. But then again, it doesn't take much to amuse me - just spending time in the most beautiful place on earth with great people.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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NML81 "Shaving a few seconds means nothing to me. Why don't they spend there time on something productive. If you shave a significant amount of time off that might mean something. What a waste of time."
Actually, if you think about it slightly differently, the time demonstrates just what the limits are. We didn't know how fast the original time was (Hans & Yuji) until someone else (not just someone else, but the Hubers) went and tried to establish a new record. What we find is that breaking the record by a significant amount is probably going to be very hard (though my argument might be refuted tomorrow).
It will be interesting to see just how much the time can come down from now... especially as I am interested in what limits apply to climbing and climbers.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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ok, back to the limits...
1000m in 9945 seconds for a 70 kg mass is about 70.4 Watts or 0.094 horsepower.
"First Class Athletes" are able to deliver 0.4 hp for many hours... (see e.g. http://www.ent.ohiou.edu/~et181/hpv/hpv.html)
if this were the limiting factor then you'd expect that the minimum time someone could ascend 1000m would be roughly 2500 seconds... or 42 minutes...
interestingly close to the "jugging time" of the cavers...
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Oct 10, 2007 - 01:19pm PT
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2:45.45
YeeHa!
BIG congrats to the Bro's. No doubt about it now--that is a record broken. Hoist!
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 10, 2007 - 01:43pm PT
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Isn't there a difference Ed between horizontal on a bike and straight up?
Congrats to the Hubers on a more solid record.
In reality, nothing is so cut and dried. The first 15 second record put them at a virtual tie and proved they are the sh#t. The second record, a few minutes over, proves they beat the record, can consistently climb at that speed and level, and confirms that they are the sh#t.
It would be a different level of accomplishment to shave 15-20 minutes off the record. Just like the below 3 hour time of Dean, Hans and their partners kicked the crap out of the old, longstanding 4 hour plus time. (with very little increments inbetween)
We're likely to see some attempted (good natured) smackdowns in the Spring or sooner!
Peace
Karl
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 11, 2007 - 12:31am PT
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power output doesn't care if it's up and down or side to side...
the difference is that going up allows you to calculate the total energy required easily, while that is not true of bicycling...
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Yaro
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Oct 11, 2007 - 12:41am PT
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cold fusion is still around?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 11, 2007 - 03:13am PT
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Ed wrote "power output doesn't care if it's up and down or side to side...
the difference is that going up allows you to calculate the total energy required easily, while that is not true of bicycling... "
Maybe I'm confused Ed. I doubt you are trying to say the same power output is required for going 3000 feet vertical versus 3000 feet horizontal, cause none of us will buy that for a moment.
So what do you mean and how do these calculations work. I've approached the 3000 feet approach to route on EL Cap in far less than 3 hours. Do I get a record?
Peace
karl
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 11, 2007 - 11:49am PT
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I think you are confusing things, Karl... just sitting around doing nothing at all your body is burning energy, roughly 1000 Calories a day with little effort on your part. 4.2 Million joules in 24 hours... which is 50 Watts of power (we're all just dim light bulbs).
The chart I was refering to on the bicycle page refered to the ability of people to sustain a power output level. People can, with training, sustain 0.4 hp (about 300 Watts) for long periods of time, say 8 hours, with bursts as high as 0.5 hp (370 W).
That's what the plot shows:
Now what is "easy" to do is to calculate the power requred to climb something, because power it is just P = ΔE/Δt where Δt is the elapsed time to get from the bottom to the top, and ΔE is the energy required, which is just mgh, m being the mass (I'd take 70 kg), h the height, take 1000 m and g the gravitational acceleration roughly 10 m/s².
It doesn't matter how you do that, if you road your bike up an inclined road 1000 m in the same time, assuming your total weight (bike + you) was 70 kg. It might feel different 'cause you're using different muscles...
I didn't say (or at least mean to say) that going horizontally 1000 m takes the same energy or requires the same power generation. Bicycling is largely a sport that has to overcome aerodynamic drag, which goes like the velocity cubed, v³. But the limits of the human body to generate power is the same. The world record 1 hour distance for bicycling is a little more than 53 km ( 33 miles) at a sustained power output of 500 W. All of that energy went into moving air around and heating tires and bearings.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Oct 11, 2007 - 12:14pm PT
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Yeah Ed, but can't you see that, while it's interesting to see what kind of watts a human body can put out, that it's pretty darn meaningless in terms of climbing?
I mean, the first pitch of Moby Dick Center and Ahab are right next to each other, they are the same height and steepness. They never, ever, require the same power or energy to climb and it's not just a matter of using different muscles, it's the power and manner with which those muscles have to be applied to move up. Just like a bicycle with oblong wheels is going to take more power. The equations are just too simplistic to be real and therefore the comparison with the energy required to climb the Nose is out of whack.
Peace
Karl
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Josh Higgins
Trad climber
San Diego
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Oct 11, 2007 - 12:14pm PT
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Ed, you're making flawed assumptions. You assuming that all power output is going towards moving up. When you're biking, all power is translated into motion in the desired direction. I seem to remember a LOT of liebacking when I did NIAD. You're exerting tons of power and energy, but perpendicular to the direction of travel. Climbing isn't the same as other sports due to its 3 dimesional nature. A lot of energy is spent that isn't necessarily pushing you linearly in the direction of travel. Also, other sports don't have to worry as much about safety! Power/time is lost setting protection, and dealing with the rope.
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andinismus
climber
Germany
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Oct 11, 2007 - 12:33pm PT
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@Ed, you´re perfectly, exactly and ultimately right.
Everything else you other guys are talking about is a matter of efficiency. But fact is that after the Hubers climbed el cap, their increase in energy is pretty much only what they gained in elevation. The amount of energy they put into the whole ascent is a different thing. So what you have here is:
µ(efficency) = Output(gain in elevation)/Input(effort to climb the nose)
As you could put it, the harder the route, the more strenuous the climbing, the less efficient the system (physically speaking).
Cheers
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ktoober
Social climber
Bay Area
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Oct 11, 2007 - 01:03pm PT
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The "power it takes to climb something" isn't just change in gravitational potential energy (mgh), however. You also have to consider the power it would take hold yourself on the wall. If we're constantly running at 50 Watts when we're just sitting around, I'd guess we're running a lot higher when we're clinging to tiny face holds, jamming off-widths, or lugging our second up to the belay. How is our energy changed in these cases? It's primarily heat, but there's also the constant exchange between kinetic and potential energy of our muscles and some chemical changes as well.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 11, 2007 - 01:33pm PT
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the physics equations are not too simple, there is a physiological limit to the amount of power that can be generated (ultimately the number of calories per millileter of O2 which is metabolized and is a CONSTANT).... and that limit imposes a thermodynamic limit on the rate at which the climb can be done.
My initial thinking-out-loud question was: are these El Cap times near that limit? The answer is no.
Now there is a whole lot of other things going on besides how much "up" you get out of how much energy you generate, but the thing that matters is the work you do, and by work I mean the physics definition of force times distance. You can spend a lot of energy pushing on a 50 ton boulder, but if it doesn't move, you haven't done any work.
Similarly for Ahab, if you aren't moving mass, you ain't working... in a physical sense. This is not too simple for consideration for climbing. These considerations point out where the physical limitations lay. Many of you have stated that there are no limits to climbing, I beg to disagree (well, actually I'm not going to beg, I'm just going to do it).
I will state that there is no way that the Nose can be done in less than 40 minutes. That might not be relevant given the current times, but it represents a limit.
A refined estimate of energy usage while climbing may increase that number, but for the moment it rests on sound physiology and physics... and also can inform climbers.
Nothing is lost by understanding the science of a thing, in fact, much is gained. You don't have to sell your soul to gain that knowledge, you are no less human, your humanity is not reduced, you can still be spiritual, the beauty is still there... for me, it is greatly enhanced...
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Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
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Oct 11, 2007 - 02:17pm PT
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i think you guys are all saying the same thing. i just have a couple questions
1. how does the coefficient of friction factor into this?
2. at about 45 minutes, how does wind resistance factor into it....
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Melissa
Gym climber
berkeley, ca
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Oct 11, 2007 - 03:21pm PT
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"I will state that there is no way that the Nose can be done in less than 40 minutes. That might not be relevant given the current times, but it represents a limit."
I'm an idiot for arguing physics w/ Ed, but here's my devil's advocate position...
In order for the 40 minute argument to hold up, it seems that the athletes in the study would need to represent the true and immutable limit of human physical capability, and their max sustained output on an 8 hour test would have to be closely correlated to the more varied output over a substantially shorter period of time that characterizes an El Cap jug-a-thon.
Now one of the physics gurus can expalin to me how I've misunderstood the problem. ;-)
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aldude
climber
Monument Manor
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Oct 11, 2007 - 03:22pm PT
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Ed - never say never......toprope by a steroid enhanced athlete,hopped up on meth,LSD and O2 could achieve a time faster than 42 minutes IMHO. (certainly the juggers could improve thier 45 min. time)
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jsb
Trad climber
Bay area
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Oct 11, 2007 - 03:36pm PT
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it's interesting to run those power output numbers for dan osman's speed ascent of bear's reach...
400 vertical ft in 4 minutes and 25 seconds for a 155 pounds climber corresponds to about 317 watts (!) of power being converted into gravitational potential energy.
317 watts = 0.425 horsepower!
according to ed's plot, he could have kept this up for at least 3 hours and scaled the nose in about 33 minutes. take that, cavers! this is of course assuming that...
1) dan osman was a 'first class athlete'
(pretty fair)
2) he didn't waste any energy at all gripping the rock, climbing sideways, holding his body in the right position, looking cool for the camera, etc.
(not so believable)
3) the nose is 5.7.
(uhhhh.... right)
4) i don't really have a 4th assumption... i just wanted to point out that i'm completely wasting time at work right now.
(very believable)
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Burns
Trad climber
Nowhere special
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Oct 11, 2007 - 03:51pm PT
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Ed, Melissa makes a really good point. Based on your graph, for 40 minutes or so of effort, a top athlete can put out around .47hp, which is maybe 18% more than you ran your original numbers on. So I would suspect that your ultimate time would be about 18% faster, say 33 minutes? But the limiting factor is probably only partly the athlete. The assumptions that have been made for these calculations is that all of the athlete's efforts, every bit of what it takes to put out that .4 or .47 or whatever hp is translated to upward motion, or work in a physics sense. The reality is that climbing, and especially difficult climbing, is a remarkably inefficient system. The amount of energy in terms of calories burned it takes a climber to climb a 100-foot 5.14 is much larger than the amount of energy required for the same climber to climb a 100 foot ladder in the same period of time, as clearly evidenced by the level of exhaustion of the climber after the task. In some ways the difficulty of a climb can be thought of as the inefficiency of the system. The cavers jugging a line had a pretty efficient system. I'd bet that if you threw the Hubers on jugs on a single static line they'd be able to come pretty close to that 43 minutes.
EDIT: Meant to add that the point is that acutally using the features offered by the Nose (most of the time) is so significantly less efficient than jugging a static line that the real limit for speed climbing the Nose is likely a lot closer to the Huber's 2:45 than the caver's 43 minutes.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Oct 11, 2007 - 03:54pm PT
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I once ran from downtown Mill Valley (64 feet) to the fire-lookout on Mt Tamalpias (2571'),
with a time of 39:56. (Annual Mt Tam Hillclimb race, via any route you care to take).
Can the wattage be accurately calculated?
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