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La Sportiva Mantra (Read 2147 times)

MischaHY

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La Sportiva Mantra
August 22, 2022, 01:03:24 pm
A short song of praise for these brilliant slippers. Super soft and sensitive and yet somehow still ace on long sandstone trad. Great in cracks, great on small edges, great on weird sharp pebbles. Makes the Miura or Solution feel horribly clunky.

Crap on lime though, esp. Frankenjura. Sliding around and awful where Solutions excel. Fine by me!

Honestly really surprised because I bought them for plastic but they're absolutely brilliant on frictiony trad/sandstone/granite/grit bouldering. They seem to sink into crap smears and make them bigger by some ungodly rubber force. Big thumbs up from me. Only used them briefly on grit but can imagine they would be an amazing choice for scary headpoints where feet are delicate.

Liamhutch89

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#1 Re: La Sportiva Mantra
August 22, 2022, 01:40:14 pm
They look similar to the Sportiva Theory which I have a similar experience with.

dave k

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#2 Re: La Sportiva Mantra
August 22, 2022, 02:59:20 pm
I was told these are a development from the popular (kids) shoe Maverink, which they discontinued.

The Maverink had the USP that you got two pens with the shoes and could design them! My daughter's fav shoe, but also know a decent board trainers and x-GB coach who use them.

Your description seems to fit the Maverink.

Unfortunately the Mantra are a fair bit more expensive than the Maverink and don't come in smaller kids sizes!!

CapitalistPunter

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#3 Re: La Sportiva Mantra
August 22, 2022, 08:42:01 pm
Lightest shoe on the market! Suprised to hear they are good in cracks, would have imagined they would be quite painful.

MischaHY

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#4 Re: La Sportiva Mantra
August 23, 2022, 08:15:44 am
Lightest shoe on the market! Suprised to hear they are good in cracks, would have imagined they would be quite painful.

I wouldn't want to rag them up 50m of thin hands due to the softness but for example at the weekend I did a 40m flared ringlocks crack and they were lovely.

remus

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#5 Re: La Sportiva Mantra
August 23, 2022, 08:23:01 am
...at the weekend I did a 40m flared ringlocks crack...

Just casually dropping that in there ;D

SA Chris

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#6 Re: La Sportiva Mantra
August 23, 2022, 09:23:35 am
The Maverink had the USP that you got two pens with the shoes and could design them! My daughter's fav shoe, but also know a decent board trainers and x-GB coach who use them.

I looked at the Mantra and was going to comment it looked like you could do join the dots on the design!

Dac

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#7 Re: La Sportiva Mantra
August 23, 2022, 12:35:29 pm
Any Mantra wearers fancy giving a bit of a indication of what the fit is like? Either your impressions of weather they suit narrow or wide, and high or low volume feet; or which other shoe make and models they are similar in fit to.

I had a pair of Lasportiva Speedsters in the dim and distant past. They were wonderful on smeary grit and sandstone, and surprisingly good on small edges, at least until your toes got tired. However they were perhaps the least comfortable shoes I have ever owned. If they actually suited my foot shape (the Speedsters didn’t) the Mantras may be a fine replacement.

MischaHY

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#8 Re: La Sportiva Mantra
October 09, 2022, 11:50:08 am
Any Mantra wearers fancy giving a bit of a indication of what the fit is like? Either your impressions of weather they suit narrow or wide, and high or low volume feet; or which other shoe make and models they are similar in fit to.

I had a pair of Lasportiva Speedsters in the dim and distant past. They were wonderful on smeary grit and sandstone, and surprisingly good on small edges, at least until your toes got tired. However they were perhaps the least comfortable shoes I have ever owned. If they actually suited my foot shape (the Speedsters didn’t) the Mantras may be a fine replacement.

Sorry, only just saw this.

Fit is medium volume, very similar to solutions in the toe box but more comfortable due to the softness allowing more conformity. The heel is quite low volume which is really good for me.

I've sized them in a 42 and found this works well with a street size of 45 in the La Spo approach shoes. This is very sensitive on
friction terrain without sacrificing precision.

For lime I find them far too soft but for higher friction rock types like sandstone, granite, gritstone or indoors they are really excellent.

Dac

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#9 Re: La Sportiva Mantra
October 10, 2022, 08:48:50 am
Thanks for this. I had a pair of solutions many years ago, and as I recall the fit was fine but I found them too stiff in the forefoot. So it sounds like the Mantras may be worth a try.

 

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