Hey,
I've been bouldering indoors for a couple of years, and in August I bought a pair of La Sportiva Miuras. The rubber on the toe on one has already worn through - I used them twice outdoors but otherwise only indoor.
I go once or twice a week, but feel like getting through the sole of a pair of shoes in under 4 months of that kind of use can't be normal?
Do you think I've just been unlucky, or will it be because I have crap technique?!
Any suggestions / ideas welcome...
Cheers,
D
how long did your last shoes last?
I think that's a bit quick, but not that unusual for someone who's been climbing a couple of years (and maybe has some improvements in footwork still on the way?).
My tip is to only use your good shoes when you have to. Get a pair resoled, after which they will be a bit crap. Use these when you're warming up, to the point where you think the crapness of the shoes is starting to hold you back. Then, get your serious shoes on to try problems at your limit.
Do this outdoors too. Depending on what types of climbing you do, after a while you could have a pair of floppy, fairly worn out things for long trad routes; some hardly used hardcore bouldering shoes; some tough indoor shoes (but you might want to put the hardcore bouldering ones on if these feel crap on hard stuff), etc. Then, when you're just using the right tool for the job, you'll have no idea how quickly they're actually wearing out. Truth is, it might be just as quick as those Miuras you've just demolished - but many of them will be much cheaper!
Like nine months - a year?
Thanks Jon that’s really useful - definitely lots of room to improve footwork, so suspect it’s that as much as anything.
Good shout re running a couple of pairs
Its always worth getting your next pair before your current pair are worn out if you are fitting them tight too. You might not want to wear a new pair for a whole session if they haven't stretched yet so the old comfy pair are a welcome break for the feet.
There is an argument (not necessarily mine) that you should always be climbing in your best shoes. How can you expect to know when your foot will stick or pop if you're doing half your training/climbing in a baggy pair of old, worn-out slippers?
Not necessarily saying you're wrong, just offering a different point of view. I know a lot of pro climbers tend to wear 2 or 3 different sizes of shoe depending on what they're doing, so there must be something in it.
I only tend to wear my shitty bashed-up old shoes for endurance circuits down at the wall as I know I'm consistently on steep, juggy ground where there really isn't a tight tolerance on smearing/edging.
> There is an argument (not necessarily mine) that you should always be climbing in your best shoes.
There's a similar argument that you should drive around in a really expensive car all the time too. I think you know where I'm going with this...
I'm in agreement with Paul on this one- if you wear really crap floppy shoes you will develop worse footwork. Wearing crap shoes teaches you to avoid small footholds which are in the right place, in favour of good footholds which are out of the way - which is exactly what you don't want to learn.
Even if you only wear crap shoes when warming up, it will teach you worse footwork which will affect you on the harder routes. Dave MacLeod talks about this in his book.
I wouldn't want to deny the wisdom about training bad footwork, but (and I think you'll like this argument) the amount of actual money it would cost to always wear good shoes is nowhere near worth any theoretical performance advantage. Just think of all the utility you can get out of a couple of hundred quid a year... That's loads of booze, or... [can't think of any other high utility product right now]. Or some minuscule improvement in climbing technique that you'll never even know if it existed. I'm taking the cash/booze every time. I might even spend the cash on high quality crack cocaine to be absolutely sure it was leading to some undeniable pleasure. I've probably saved enough money this year to buy myself a new pipe as well.
And we're talking about indoors mainly, so there's basically no choice of footholds. I think it's more likely that you could fail to train more subtle stuff - exactly how you stand/pull on bad holds. It takes more finger strength to use shit shoes on small holds (I've often seen wads training in trainers), so that's a performance gain you've also got to balance against your theoretical footwork gains.
So, it'll be crap shoes and good crack for me, every time.
Wearing good shoes outside and crap floppy ones inside is one thing.
Wearing a good pair of shoes outside until they are about half worn, then wearing them inside until they become crap (while using your next new pair outside) is another. It means you don't wear out your outside pair as quickly because you have two pairs of good shoes on the go at any one time.
> I’ve often seen wads training in trainers, so that's a performance gain you've also got to balance against your theoretical footwork gains.
> So, it'll be crap shoes and good crack for me, every time.
As you’ve probably guessed, I’m anything but a wad, but when I’m training on my home wall, it’s an old pair of Merrell Barefoot trainers for me. Current fave shoes for elsewhere are a pair of trainer sized Boldrinis with holes in the toes. I noticed that the more time I spend on the fingerboard, the less I give a toss about shoes. Who would’ve thought?
I've been climbing in Miuras for several years, and they are indeed well-known for de-laminating really quickly.
Have yours actually worn through (i.e. a hole through to your toe) or is just the top layer of rubber coming away?
If it's just the top layer, it's annoying to have slivers of rubber flapping, but if you trim them off you will get quite a lot more climbing out of the the shoes.
I find this issue with Miuras really frustrating but so far I haven't found any other shoes as good to climb in (when new!) Not wanting to hi-jack your thread but if anyone's found any shoes with a similar fit and performance to Miuras but longer-lasting, do recommend them on here!
I wear Miura VS. When wearing them on my home board 45 degrees I find as they start to get floppy I struggle to keep my feet on, they seem to lose their down turn.
So it doesn’t do much for my limited technique climbing in sh*t shoes. However they smear better outside when they are worn out.
"Good" crack cocaine could lead to seriously damaging your health and a "good" long prison sentence. Then you won't need even the crappiest of shoes.
Muira’s are NOT a long lasting shoe. The toe rand is far too thin. I only get three or four months out of a pair. I’m sure this is designed in “fault” because there are daft people like me that keep buying them despite the obvious failings. Like the other poster above I’d love to find a more robust shoe that works and fits as well.
I buy scarpa, they fit me. After 4 months the sole will be worn but not quite into the rand. Time to send to llanberis resoles. They come back usually better than new. I get them done up to about 5 times. I buy really tight to start, so even when they are old they are still tight. Works for me.
> "Good" crack cocaine could lead to seriously damaging your health and a "good" long prison sentence. Then you won't need even the crappiest of shoes.
I suggesting that we should all use substandard crack?
Top of the toe? Point of the toe? Or under the toe?
I use the blue miuras vs, 2 pairs have lasted me @3 years.
The 'pivot' point under the toe does wear rapidly once a hole has started, but takes 9 months or more to get to that level of wear, and I climb 3-5 times a week.
Is the wall you frequent covered in friction paint, and involve a lot of smearing in the setting?
That's usually a cause of knackered shoes these days.
Other wise it sounds like you need to drill your footwork a lot more.
> I only get three or four months out of a pair.
Out of the sole. Which can be resoled.
> I’m sure this is designed in “fault” because there are daft people like me that keep buying them despite the obvious failings.
I'm sure that this bollocks. I work in the industry and the last thing manufacturers are doing is putting faults in on purpose. Desperately trying to not have faults, that's about the size of it.
> My tip is to only use your good shoes when you have to.
Good beta.
> Get a pair resoled, after which they will be a bit crap.
Bad beta. A decent resole is amazing. I've climbed personal bests in resoled shoes, like last week where I did my first 8A boulder wearing resoled Miura VS. I was wearing them because they climb so damn well after the resole that the other new pair that I have are just sitting in the cupboard waiting for the end of days.
If your resoles are bad, find a different resoler.
My experience also. Resoling tends to produce superb shoes because the uppers already fit one perfectly and one can have the very best possible sticky rubber fitted. Resoling typically costs about half that of a new pair of shoes. Guides in areas with rough rock do this all the time.
could be bad technique, or if you don't get that in your other shoes, then it could be soft rubber? Soles on my shoes last me several months. I am super delicate with my feet though!
just out of interest, who did you resole the shoes with?
Not my experience but there you go.
if you’re on a wall footholds by and large stock out which gives you a large amount of leeway with boot wear.....imo
The toe rand usually goes first.
Perhaps the rand is just stretched to tightly over the pointy front?
I’d be interested to find out how rand rubber thickness compares between scarp and la sportiva.
6mm soles used to be quite common now 4mm seems to be the norm.
I’m sure you could argue this is all about performance, I’m sceptical.
Interestingly, I have never worn through the rand of Miura Laces and I have had quite a few pairs. For me, they usually wear through under the big toe, half a cm away from the edge, from pivoting on them.
Can’t says I’ve ever had that wear pattern. Our respective climbing styles must just be hard on our shoes...
I'm based in Germany so get my resoles done by Mick at www.outdoor-climbing.de
He has custom made wooden moulds for each Sportiva shoe so they come back absolutely perfectly. He even does custom modifications on shoes - next I'm going to ask him to put a full toe patch of XS Grip on my Miura VS as he's already done that for someone and apparently it's awesome. Should make that shoe a lot more capable!
He does postal resoles so you could probably get it done there if really keen. I hear Llanberis do a great job though and that's a lower carbon footprint than posting to DE.
4 months is about normal for high end climbing shoes. The sticky rubber is sticky BECAUSE it is wearing itself out in contact with the surface friction of the rock/plastic/friction paint. The stickier the rubber, the quicker it wears out.
The question then becomes: do you need, at your level, to wear a high end climbing shoe for all your climbing? Probably not. So having two pairs, as suggested above, is wise. If not, then you have to just accept that your shoes will wear out about this fast.
I don’t really buy the “crap footwork causes shoes to wear out faster” argument. Unless you are scraping your feet unnecessarily up the wall at every opportunity, then I don’t see how you’d be wearing shoes out more. Unless, i suppose, your footwork is so bad that you are constantly sliding off footholds and dragging the rubber over them etc. More likely: people vary in eg how many problems they will attempt on a visit to the gym within the same time frame (I know that i spend a lot less time chatting and looking at problems than a lot of people seem to, and more time actually climbing). Result is that although two people ostensibly have been using a pair of shoes for the same amount of time, in fact one is doing far more actual climbing in that period - and so their shoes wear out faster. I’m convinced this is far more of a relevant factor that bad footwork.
I’m in need of a toe patch too! My toe hooks always suck, even with my hypermobility and crazy angles Incna make with my feet! Do you know whether the german guy has a mould of or do a good job on five ten verdes? I’ve got two verdes that are due for a resole soon! Thinking of sending them both to George in Greece who people on here have been raving about!
>”More likely: people vary in eg how many problems they will attempt on a visit to the gym within the same time frame”
Doesn’t everyone try to climb 100 problems or 25 routes on a visit to the wall?
I've had exactly this experience with miuras. I tried Vapour Vs as an alternative after a pair of miuras delaminated even quicker than normal (I've found it's pot luck with this and have had some that haven't done this at all). They're very similar to miuras but narrower on the toe box. I have a problem with my right foot that means a I need a wide fit, I think. So the Vapour Vs are too painful for me. And that means I can't compare their longevity with the miuras as I can't wear them.
Like you I've had some success with trimming the flappy bit and even put a bit of glue on one pair that seemed to slow down the peeling without making the shoes too rubbish. I've recently had a pair resoled and am super impressed. I think if I keep doing this it'll be the best way to make carrying on with my beloved miuras more affordable.
Try Scarpa Instinct Lace - superior to the Vapour in build quality and performance, and wider in the fit, with the flexibility of shape enabled by the laces. I spent some time experimenting with the Tenaya Oasi as a replacement for the Scarpa Instinct for bouldering/hard sport but am going back to Scarpa as the instincts are IMO the best shoe around for that sort of stuff.
I can’t wear Muira as my feet are too fat. I had a pair years ago and exploded the buckles off of them even quicker than it took the toes to wear through (which wasn’t long)
This week's Friday Night Video is a portrait of a prolific climbing photographer from Wedge Climbing. Sam Pratt is well known in both the outdoor and competition scene but if you haven't heard of him, you've likely seen...