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General Climbing Discussion

Topic Date User

How do you like your shoes? 7-Jun-2005 At 11:06:16 AM Tav

Message

On 7/06/2005 MrKyle wrote:
>If you think tight shoes will make a difference to the grade you can climb,
>think again.
>
>For years I wore very tight climbing shoes when climbing hard routes.
>But a few years ago I started wearing my floppy old slippers on harder
>routes - and what do you know, I climbed much better.
>
>I tend to have 3 or 4 pairs:
>1) Comfy slippers/shoes that I can wear for hours, originally sized tight
>but not painful, for 90% of the climbing;
>2) A newer/tighter pair with a little more stiffness, good heel, and a
>bit more edge for those occasions when required;
>3) A pair of stiff soled trad boots - mostly for cracks;
>4) A dodgy old pair for the gym.

This is really interesting! Thank you all for your input it's great to hear different people's opinions.
Do you think your climbed better because of the actual fit or because you were comfortable Kyle?

The main reason I got the shoes I did was because I didn't realise they were as tight as the were at the time. However, I do like them tight...thinking critically it's most likely I like them that way because it's what I'm used to. The problem I've found whenever I'm looking at buying shoes is the heel too. I've got really narrow and small heels and no one really makes shoes that fit properly. Makes it difficult to buy anything that fits properly. At the moment, while heel hooking in my manky dislocating shoes, if I go for a heel hook my *^$@*! heel is prone to slipping out of the shoe...