Sliced Slab Shoes

For what it's worth, I took an old pair of climbing shoes, and sliced them up to see if it would make them stick better on the friction stuff. I only did a couple of routes before and after, so it's not a scientific comparison, and probably like most slab climbs there was the confidence thing going on, but the shoes definitely seemed stickier to me. On Sierra and J-Tree granite, and southern UT sandstone.

I estimated the rough angle I would generally place my foot, about 10 degrees heel in, held a ruler at that angle, and made some slices with a razor knife. About 1mm deep; maybe 3mm apart. Again, probably just the confidence thing, but the shoes seemed to stick better once I'd done some climbing and walking around, thus grinding some dirt between the slices to hold them apart just a bit, rather than sealing back together like sticky rubber wants to do.

hi, I can't say that I am personally very excited about softening climbing shoes to climb a harder slab ... however, while we are talking about it I thought I'd mention an old trick to you: turpentine. it softens the rubber which then gives you much more friction.
I am not into those games but I guess turpentine would work maybe better than your cuts.
anyway, have fun with your experiments, beaki

To see if the supposed improvement is real or imagined, one could have a friend slice up just one of your shoes, not tell you which one, and then you go out and see if one foot seems to stick better than the other (without looking at the bottoms of your shoes).

If you are really into this kind of stuff try to get a hold of Ron Amick, he was real into the science of slab climbing at Mount Woodson and can probably give you all kinds of extensive trickery.

Maybe you can even get him to post his "Top Secret File" (veiled reference, unless you climbed in SD some..)

mountainproject.com/u/ron-a…

You should turpentine those scored shoes for maximum slab action. You'll turn 5.12 friction into a pocket slab in no time.

Please post results for critical analysis.

What you did is call "Siping". The tire industry likes to try to sell this "Feature" to you when buying tires. It has limited use in snow and ice but likely does not help in dry conditions.

Climbing Shoe Specific, I suspect it does not help as the slits now effect the integrity of the rubber - The rubber is more likely to deflect and can no longer rely on its hardness to help stick to the crystals. Perhaps on glass smooth rock it could aid in grip ala siping on boat shoes but for most conditions, I doubt it.

Also may be seeing improvement because the rubber is older and oxidized/hardened and the siping softened it up a bit...

when i do slab routes, often i climb em better the second or third time around in a day ... whether its the same or different routes

youre warmed up and yr footwork is getting better as the day goes on

especially if its the same routes

hmmmmm ....

;)

I, also, thought of sipes.

In this case, I'm not surprised that you found these grippier. But, I wonder what the cost is -- I'd be greatly surprised if such soles didn't wear out in a fraction of the time for an unsliced sole.

I have thought about doing a similar thing but in a tight X pattern only like a quarter mm deep, and each line about a mm apart. it would take a long time but it should allow the rubber to find all the subtle features in the rock and give you better friction.

somehow missed this. For best friction file the soles of your shoes until you get to virgin rubber. If you want to send a friction test piece do it on a cool/cold low humidity day. Atmospheric conditions greatly affect the friction coefficient of your soles. The ultimate trick was conceived by the Lowe brothers long ago. They incorporated short pieces of wire into a boot sole. The wire gripped little rugosities in the rock so well that Jeff Lowe said "you could walk up a B1 (5.12) slab with your hands in your pockets" They didnt pursue it as they thought it would be bad for the sport

taipan jam wrote: If you are really into this kind of stuff try to get a hold of Ron Amick, he was real into the science of slab climbing at Mount Woodson and can probably give you all kinds of extensive trickery. Maybe you can even get him to post his "Top Secret File" (veiled reference, unless you climbed in SD some..) mountainproject.com/u/ron-a…

Top secret file was a boulder problem that Dan Leichtfuss put up at woodson. It is ridiculously difficult and has never been repeated. Filing his soles made it possible, thus the name

Ron Amick wrote:

somehow missed this. For best friction file the soles of your shoes until you get to virgin rubber. If you want to send a friction test piece do it on a cool/cold low humidity day. Atmospheric conditions greatly affect the friction coefficient of your soles. The ultimate trick was conceived by the Lowe brothers long ago. They incorporated short pieces of wire into a boot sole. The wire gripped little rugosities in the rock so well that Jeff Lowe said "you could walk up a B1 (5.12) slab with your hands in your pockets" They didnt pursue it as they thought it would be bad for the sport

I heard about the wire impregnated soles from one of Lowes nephews. He thought it would be akin to cheating so left it alone.

rock climbing wrote:

The problem with slices is that they are only apart only on the final part of the step not the initial when it is most important. You’d probably made the shoe softer and you were able to get more rubber on the rock.  

Was the wire similar to the madrock horseshoe sole? or just a wire through the middle of the rubber. That would create a bump that would help on slabs more than the cuts. A bump in the sole can be easily made with two layers of rubber. 

Okay mediocre attempt to paint the picture that was given to me....
Imagine wire bristle sole(like a wire brush), now imagine it encased in rubber. When you weight the shoe the little wire bristles would 'grab' into the tiniest of textures. I kinda think it as your shoes are 'nano hooking' microscopic nooks and crannies of the rock, along with the benefits of the sticky rubber. It also kept the rubber from deforming/rolling as it was almost like mini rebar reinforcement of the rubber.

These shoes were aid.

Walnuts in winter tire rubber

Of moderate relevance to this thread but some may find it interesting: 

Many say that at low/moderate grades shoes don't matter. I think this is mostly true, but I have found an enormous anomaly in this rule: true friction slab. I think a lot of climbers don't have terribly much experience on true friction slab, and I didn't before climbing at Emmigrant Wall, which other than being a phenomenal place where one can learn to climb slab on lead and safely take falls, is also just one of the best moderate multipitch destinations in NorCal. 

It isn't atypical to climb a route at E Wall and only have one or two real holds per pitch-- the rest of the pitches (which are often 70m long!) are all real deal friction slab on stellar granite. I found that I (a large 200 lb human) was sliding backwards on 5.8 at E Wall. I've seen lighter humans sliding backwards on only 5.7. I experienced this in both my TC Pros and in my Scarpa Techno Xs, which is just a typical stiff trad shoe with XS Edge rubber. 

After resoling the Scarpas in XS Grip 2 I was no longer sliding backwards and everything felt a grade easier. These shoes are amazing on all easier terrain and I call them my trad dad shoes, which the GF has dubbed the TD Pros. In the TD Pros 5.8 went from a terrifying grade where I was never sure if my feet would stick or not and where I would not infrequently take lead falls when trusting my feet suddenly didn't work out anymore to being an almost comfortable grade for me and I haven't taken a lead fall at the grade there since the resole. 

Also note that at least one of the times I was sliding backwards (before the resole) was at the beginning of my lead and a very good slab climber was analyzing my technique and telling me what to do and was saying that I was doing everything right as I was sliding backwards. Also also when I've seen other, lighter people sliding backwards on 5.7 it was also in TC Pros.

To be clear I think loads of people in the these forums could lead every route at E Wall without sliding backwards in TC Pros quite easily, but the point is that on friction slab the shoe choice seems to have a much larger impact than in other styles, even at astonishingly low grades. Sensitive shoes perform well, sticky shoes perform well, stiff non-sticky shoes like most trad shoes perform terribly. If doing a hard for you friction slab climb put some thought into the shoes you take as the consequences of that choice are much, much larger than in most other types of rock climbing. 

I have recently gotten a pair of upsized Skwamas that will now be my go to E Wall shoe. Who knows, maybe they'll make it feel even easier than the TD Pros?

Seems like an easier out of the box solution than siping and turpentine. And you end up with another pair of shoes in your quiver! 

There is nothing hard enough about E-wall to warrant a special shoe/rubber IMO, its just not that steep.
My guess is you just got better, or maybe just more confident at friction climbing, but are attributing it to the new rubber. Thats a good thing.
Keep that heel down, weight over your feet, and stand up.

I got a climb for you at BRR if ya wanna test your friction skills this season.

Mr Rogers wrote:

There is nothing hard enough about E-wall to warrant a special shoe/rubber IMO, its just not that steep.
My guess is you just got better, or maybe just more confident at friction climbing, but are attributing it to the new rubber. Thats a good thing.
Keep that heel down, weight over your feet, and stand up.

I got a climb for you at BRR if ya wanna test your friction skills this season.

It isn't that steep, but I've seen no less than three people manage to slide backwards in TCs. I've tried out my TCs while following as an experiment-- I still slide backwards. 

I know many people here are much more accomplished slab climbers than I am yourself included, and I'm certainly open to being wrong, but the evidence seems pretty strong to me on this one. Sticky rubber or soft shoes make a massive difference at E Wall, and many of my punter friends have also noticed how large the difference is in TCs vs. say Moccs or Mythos. 

Fair 'nuff Ricky.

Either way, you should come get a day in out at BRR on the Snozz.

Mr Rogers wrote:

Fair 'nuff Ricky.

Either way, you should come get a day in out at BRR on the Snozz.

Lol I'll tell ya hwat, you put up the rope and I'll follow absolutely whatever. I've only done one route out there and it was delightful, but a slab test piece it was not. I'm gonna try and become a 5.9 e Wall leader this summer, and I'm already scared thinking about it. Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it! A lot more slab falls on the forecast I'm afraid