Behind the scenes: how Sendit logs a session

Most climbers know they should keep a logbook. Far fewer actually do, and the reason is almost always the same: logging is a faff. By the time you have finished a hard session, the last thing you want is to fill in a form. So when we built session logging in Sendit, the brief was simple — make it quick enough that you actually do it, and useful enough that it pays you back. Here is how it works behind the scenes.

A session is just a few taps

The core idea is that logging should keep pace with how a session actually unfolds, not interrupt it. You start a session and tick climbs off as you go, or log the lot at the end if you would rather stay in the flow. Each entry captures the things that matter for learning later:

• The grade, on whatever scale you climbed — V-scale or Font for boulders, French or YDS for routes.
• Whether it was a send, a flash, or a project you fell off.
• For board climbing, the angle, because a V5 at 40 degrees is a very different beast from a V5 at 20.
• A note if you want one — the beta that finally worked, the move you keep failing, how the fingers felt.

The whole point is that the common case is fast. Logging a flash should be one tap. The detail is there when you want it and out of the way when you do not.

Turning taps into a history

A single logged climb is not very interesting. A few hundred of them are. The work that matters happens after you log, when those entries become a history you can read. Sendit organises your climbs by date, grade and angle so that patterns surface on their own.

That history answers the questions memory cannot. What grades have you actually been sending lately, rather than what you tell people at the pub? Which angles do you avoid? How long did that project really take, and what changed on the session you finally sent it? Your logbook holds the honest version, and seeing it laid out is often where the useful realisations come from.

Why the small details earn their place

Every field we ask for has to justify itself, because anything that slows logging down means fewer people log at all. Angle made the cut because it is the single biggest thing that changes what a board grade means, and without it your board history is hard to compare over time. The send-or-project distinction made it because the climbs you fall off teach you as much as the ones you finish. Notes made it because the one line you write about the beta that worked is gold when you come back to a project weeks later.

Everything else we leave optional or out entirely. A logbook you fill in fully once and then abandon is worth less than a quick one you keep for years.

What it adds up to

The aim of all this is not to turn climbing into spreadsheet admin. It is to give you, with almost no effort, the one thing that quietly drives improvement: a true record of what you have done. Over a season that record shows you whether your training is working, where your weaknesses sit, and how far you have actually come.

A few taps at the wall, and the rest sorts itself out in the background. That is the whole idea — make the logging cheap, make the history rich, and let your sessions add up into something you can learn from.