3 February 2016

Sticking rubber toe plasters or separate big toes on shoes?

With the amazing barefoot ascents by Charles "Mowgli" Albert in Fontainebleau, there exists a possibility that there will be a market for sticking rubber toe plasters. As Mowgli has showed that on some few extreme boulder cases, bare feet are equally good as any shoes, what about something in between, rubber just on the big toes? This will increase the friction and make it possible to climb longer sessions without shoes and benefit from closer contact with the rock. Clearly, neither barefoot or rubber toe plasters will ever be popular with normal climbers but if you want to do some extreme climbs to get a higher grade, why not try it. Imagine the benefit from getting your whole big toe into a thin two finger pocket, compared to trying to get one millimeter of the shoe in the opening of that deep two finger pocket. One alternative could of be to make a semi-separate pointy big toe on shoes? This would also make it possible to get in your big toe deeper in the two finger pocket. If this could help you through the crux, you could try it out by creating an indentation in your shoe next to your big toe.
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