Purchasing climbing shoes can be a daunting task. Unlike your street shoes, an approximate sizing won't be good enough. Virtually every climbing shoe has a unique shape and sizing system. The task is to...
Purchasing climbing shoes can be a daunting task. Unlike your street shoes, an approximate sizing won't be good enough. Virtually every climbing shoe has a unique shape and sizing system. The task is to find a shoe that fits your foot, and then size it appropriately for the type of climbing you're going to be doing.
First of all, your shoes should feel snug all around your foot, without big gaps in the heel or under the arch that could cause the shoe to slip and slide around. For sports climbing and bouldering there is a pretty strong correlation between the difficulty of the climb and your shoe size: as the number grade of the climb increases, the number of your shoe size decreases correspondingly. However, there is a limit to an increase in tightness in regard to performance. If your feet hurt so much that you don't want to, or can't climb, you've gone too far.
The shoe that you take out of the box the first day you climb with it will not be the same after wearing it for a while. All shoes stretch, some more than others, so it is important to size your shoes to account for how they will feel after wearing in.
Women's, men's climbing shoes, as well as unisex models and children's climbing shoes, curved and straight climbing shoes from Millet and Edelrid – to reach every peak!
