TC pro's new and improved?

Cole Darby wrote:

The yellow bit of extra lace protection is actually clutch, as that is a very standard failure point in the last model. Particularly with offwidth, with the older model, either what you thread the lace through, or the lace itself, would break at that point. Whatever you loose in comfort, (which is nothing to me) you for sure make up for in improving that failure point. Maybe it doesn’t bother me that much because I almost always wear socks and I don’t aggressively side them down.

Do you have a photo a shoes actually wearing there? I can show you multiple pairs blown out on the other side, but never that side.

I can only imagine the new reinforced part seeing any wear on very particular invert offwidths, which I would not call "standard" at all.

Cole Darby wrote:

The yellow bit of extra lace protection is actually clutch, as that is a very standard failure point in the last model. 

Are you speaking out of your personal experience? If so, can you post photos of your shoes and what kind of cracks do you climb? I am curious because that is not how many others and I experience. I shared my own photo upthread.

Not at home currently, but I have quite a few photos I’ll post when I get back.

Perhaps the routes I was climbing were not common movement patterns or I was climbing them with odd beta. I blew out the laces in that section many times. Would have to swap laces very regularly, and eventually the loop you thread the lace into would also break. 

Usually :

-#4 and up, angle dependent

-heel toes where they don’t quite fit so I’d press up into one side of the crack with that area of the shoe

-hanging upside down in wood offwidth trainer cracks traversing left and right, or doing core work, on stacks and heel toes

I use BUTORAS now when OW training at home and have far less issues

Refreshing myself on this full thread, I agree with those earlier points and have also had many failures on the small toe side. We wouldn’t say more failures (for me), but would be nice if both sides were reinforced. 

Niche offwidth techniques don't seem like it would be high on La Sportiva's list to add a specific protector for. 

Here's me foot jamming, the little rubber sleeve doesn't touch the rock at all. Have I been doing this wrong all along? Should I be inverted for all hand cracks? 

In other news, the new TC Pros make sharp cracks much less painful. 

K Go wrote:

Niche offwidth techniques don't seem like it would be high on La Sportiva's list to add a specific protector for. 

Here's me foot jamming, the little rubber sleeve doesn't touch the rock at all. Have I been doing this wrong all along? Should I be inverted for all hand cracks? 

In other news, the new TC Pros make sharp cracks much less painful. 

https://www.switchbacktravel.com/reviews/la-sportiva-tc-pro :

SBT: One thing I'm confused about is the green thin leather sleeve protecting the lower eyelets. Why on the inside of the shoe and not the outside? Seems to me the outside would get more abrasion in cracks (particularly hand size) and such.

TC: I think this is an area of the shoe that does have a lot of people confused. It looks like it was a design solution to solely increase the durability (like you are saying) but it was actually a solution to an issue that I experienced when I was using the shoe in a hand crack. The laces design on the original TC Pro made that area of the foot a little bulky and foot jams sometimes became painful. The solution was to change the lacing harness design and utilize a lower profile (and coated) leather which reduces pressure and the new material also increases abrasion resistance in crack climbing scenarios.

The plastic piece is meant to stiffen the toe side shoe wall so the rubber doesn’t delaminate when from toe bending like it did with the previous TC.

Shoelace protection doesn’t exist on this version. My partner already tore through the laces on both shoes at the outside toe section. 

Interesting on the stiffening idea to prevent delam. It's pretty soft, seems like it wouldn't do much in that regard. Bending it around in my hand however, it does seem like it could at least spread the bending stress around a bit and prevent a hard fold / crease in the upper from forming.

Recessed eyelets are at least a step in the right direction. Eventually enough jamming will mess up your shoes and laces, but going to flat laces helps even more. 

The 5.10 grandstones (while not super durable otherwise thanks to the Adidas buyout) have both recessed eyelets and flat laces and I'm on my 3rd resole of one pair where the upper is literally falling apart and I still haven't cut through the original laces. 

They're doing something right, at least in the lace department: