UKC

I was wondering whether people get slightly bigger shoes for bouldering.

Jumping off plus the fact you tend to wear them more continuously perhaps means comfort is more important? Of course the trade off is precision.

In reply to stp:

Quite the reverse I think - you wear them less as you can take them off between attempts. Not like an all-day trad shoe where they have to be comfy, bouldering shoes can be tighter as you can release/remove them as soon as you're not climbing.

In reply to stp:

Agree with what Durbs said, I'm mostly a boulderer these days and really the only thing that matters is how tiny the footholds the shoes will allow me to use are. All my shoes are a lot tighter than I'd choose for long routes.

When it gets too much I just take them off.

In reply to @ndyM@rsh@ll:

I wasn't really thinking of long trad routes but more compared to sport climbing where typically you might keep them on for 30 minutes max before coming down to rest and belay someone else for a while.

Also how about indoor bouldering where typically you climb for several hours with maybe one short break in the middle?

Just asking coz the last session I had my feet really hurt.

In reply to stp:
For indoor bouldering I have one moderately snug-but-not-crippling pair of bouldering shoes (Scarpa Instincts, where you can quickly pop off the heels to relieve your toes) which I use for 90% of my bouldering, from warming up to doing circuits of stuff that I would expect to get within 3 - 5 tries. Then I have a couple of really tight pairs in my bag that I use when the problems get really serious, where you have the shoes on for like 30 seconds at a time and most of the time you are sitting on the mat. It means you need the initial outlay on at least two pairs of shoes but as you are spreading the wear between them it doesn't really cost more in the long run.

My toes are *much* happier than when I was trying to wear super tight bouldering shoes for everything - lace ups are worse for this IMHO because it is such a faff to get in and out of them, it encourages you to keep them on for too long at a time, velcro or slippers are much better.

In reply to Quiddity:

Sounds like a good plan. Agree regarding velcro shoes and slipping of the heels quickly. But thinking that I probably need a slightly less snug pair for general use.

In reply to stp:
The conventional thing to do I think is get more aggressive (ie smaller size) shoes for bouldering, for the reasons mentioned (you can take them off, you need more precision etc). Some people have 2 pairs as mentioned, a comfortable one for the majority of climbing and a more aggressive one for those trickier problems.

Having said this, I only do indoors bouldering and my no 1 criterion is comfort - I get a size I am actually comfortable enough in to wear them non-stop for the whole session. I am a relative beginner really and usually don't climb anything much harder than V4 but up to that grade I personally hardly ever feel the shoes are the limiting factor.

The only times I actually felt that I could do with tighter/more aggressive shoes is when doing certain heel hooks. I actually think choosing the right-shaped shoe for your foot is equally if not more important than the size.

If your feet are hurting enough to post here, my guess is that you can do with a larger size. Too tight shoes can cause issues with your feet too over time...