[siderunner]

Oh and with the sizing I was 7 in whites and 39 in muras which equates to 6. 39.5 felt really tight ...

I'll echo that. I messed up w my Miuras sizewise: bought a pair that felt really tight and now after abt 10 sessions they're half a size too loose. Guess they relax more than whites/pinks ...

[Duncan campbell]

Thanks, all some interesting and often contrasting opinions!

Steve: I have tried Anasazi VCS in both colours and don't find them anywhere near as stiff as whites and therefore pretty crap - I have weak feet I think!

Toby: I don't want to go massively more downturned, just a bit in order to get more force through my feet? I wouldn;t look twice at Dragons or futuras for example...

Remus: Do you mean Instinct VS or Vapour V?

I guess as I suspected, I'll just have to try a load on...

[Wood FT]

walk around on your tip toes more Dunc, instead of that cockney walk, and you'll  have strong feet in no time

[Johnny Brown]

Watch in particular the climbers moving up vertical ground. Watch carefully how they place their feet. See how as they pad their toes downwards onto the foothold, they continue to drop their whole foot down by an inch or so after the toe has made contact.

As far as I'm concerned this is just good footwork. It's how you get your feet to stick regardless of the aggressiveness of the boot. I haven't noticed any need to do this more with modern boots but perhaps mine aren't aggressive enough.

walk around on your tip toes more Dunc, instead of that cockney walk, and you'll  have strong feet in no time

When I was young and naive I met a old climber who told me the reason Pat Littlejohn was so good was because 'he was a toewalker at school'.

[Wood FT]

When I was young and naive I met a old climber who told me the reason Pat Littlejohn was so good was because 'he was a toewalker at school'.

Got to be some truth behind the myth though hey. After Dave Mc pissed Walk of Life wasn't one of the contributing reasons cited as being that he spends a lot of his time front pointing and so would've felt less fatigued chumming around on his feet?

(Source: I think it was Bransby in an onstage interview with a bunch of other climbers, including Pearson, which was well awkward...)

[tomtom]

I dont think its downturned boots - I think its anything with a bunched up toebox - this forces the foot into a downturn position anyway and you get the strength of the shoe from the arch of the foot with the rubber acting below holding the points of the arch together as it were... If you climb barefoot or with a super soft non downturn slipper (I've got some supermoccs that are like this) then edges and toe points are climbed very differently...

Anyway...

The findings of my last 12 months of shoe research (based on using Scarpa instinct VS, Instinct Slipper and 5:10 Anasazi Velcro and SupermoccII)  is:

Scarpa better fit for wider feet (mine bulge out of the side of 5:10's- makes outside edges a little worse..)

5:10 rubber performs better on COLD grit - Scarpa better on WARMER grit/sandstone/lime...

[abarro81]

Conversely, I have fairly narrow and quite low volume feet, and find the scarpa instinct lace a much better fit than any 5.10. The slipper is also the only slipper I've ever managed to get to work right for me..  The velcros don't fit me at all though.

[tomtom]

Conversely, I have fairly narrow and quite low volume feet, and find the scarpa instinct lace a much better fit than any 5.10. The slipper is also the only slipper I've ever managed to get to work right for me..  The velcros don't fit me at all though.

Yeah - the instinct slipper is a remarkably versatile (and comfy) shoe once you get past the initial bagging phase.. Velcros I'm not so sure of.. just a little too stiff in the front section to be confident for smeary stuff.. I tend to use them for small precise holds/edges..

I've no experience of the lace ups though... any thoughts on the rubber performance?

[ghisino]

OT

permanent (with a stiffener, like the Sportiva P3 platform) and temporary (downturn is shaped only in rubber)

the p3 if i understood it well is not a stiffener/traditional midsole but rather a sort of elastic rand tensioning the shoe underneath the sole, which helps retaining the concave sole shape as the shoe breaks up, when you're ot wearing it, when resoled, etc
I think some scarpa models feature something similar, under a different name.

mind that, p3 or not, all downturned shoes, when being used, have some degree of under-foot tensioning coming from the way the last is designed: the sole side of the shoe is short, compared to the same foot size in a relaxed position.

(actually i'd say: all correctly sized climbing shoes have some degree of under-foot tension during use, even very flat ones.)

[abarro81]

I've no experience of the lace ups though... any thoughts on the rubber performance?

Rubber seems to work well on the lime. Prefer the slippers to the laces on smeary grit generally (where by generally I mean on the 5 days per year I go near smeary grit), think that's just because they're sensitive, not sure if the rubber's different