Purple 5.10s

I’ve been due in for a new pair of climbing shoes for a while now – my old school Five Tens (you remember the purple 5.10s) had little edge left, and the grip was less than ideal.  Since I’ve gotten back into climbing on a regular basis over at the Sportrock Sterling location, I decided to go ahead and look at my options and see what today’s technology has brought to the table in the realm of climbing shoes.

Spent about an hour and a half on Saturday trying on climbing shoes at the local Eastern Mountain Sports location.  I was pretty deadset on getting a pair with Velcro, for the pure ease and efficiency in taking them on and off (or maybe it had something to do with the “cool” factor of Velcro shoes, like the pair of sneakers I had when I was 8 years old).  I tried on every Velcro shoe EMS had, from the Evolv Pontas, to the Five Ten Galileo, to the La Sportiva Miura VS, and everything in between.  Even tried the Five Ten Moccasym, a convenient slip-on shoe. At the end of the day, every Velcro shoe I tried had a fit I was less than satisfied with – each shoe seemed to have too much vertical space in the front of the shoe, allowing for a lot of excess movement in my toes.  I left Saturday morning with a pair of the Five Ten Galileos on hold.

I went back to EMS Sunday afternoon with my Mother (the new shoes were a Christmas present, after all), having already decided I would have to try on the lace-up shoes.  Fortunately, that selection was not as large as their Velcro selection.  My choices included the La Sportiva Barracuda, Nago, and Mythos.  The Mythos shoe felt great on my feet, but their performance on the wall was… eh.  They didn’t feel much better than 6 year old 5.10s, and the toe wasn’t aggressive enough for my tastes.  My choice came down to the Barracuda and the Nago.  When it came right down to it, the Nago had a better fit for my foot, and their performance on the wall felt much better than my tired 5.10s.  So, after another hour and a half of trying on shoes and making the EMS employees go back and forth between me and the stockroom, I settled on the La Sportiva Nagos.

Now I just have to wait until Christmas to start breaking them in and enjoying them.  Until then, I get one last month of comfort from my dependable, experienced, purple 5.10s.  Ah, the memories.