Which Sole Material Has the Best Traction?

[Tron-Life]

Just curious as I was talking to somebody about vibram being slippery. Actually, all the shoes I have been getting are really slippery on rocks and metal and they are all vibram. Does NB make a non-vibram trailrunner? Anyway, let's talk about sole material and their benefits and drawbacks.

[Another Kevin]

Best traction for what? If you're talking about trying to use friction holds on slabby rock, you most likely want approach shoes with sticky climbing rubber. Somthing like these. But those certainly won't hold up to the rigors of a long hike. You need heavier lugs for things like mud and wet roots. (If you get approach shoes, get them tighter than your trail runners, wear thin socks and lace them snug. They need to move with your foot, and you need to be able to feel the rock and use them for edging and smearing.) If you're doing more crack climbing and boulder scrambling, regular trail runners are actually pretty good, slippery as they feel. A common beginner's mistake is to hug the rock too closely alternatively. You want to keep your center of gravity right over your boot.

For what it's worth, I scrambled this with some confidence in NB trail runners and found the traction adequate. (NOT my picture: I include it from http://zeelemons.wordpress.com/2013/...rack-and-back/. I was paying far too much attention to my climbing to have any to spare for photography.)


One trick for more secure scrambling is to carry some sort of little brush to clean the gunk off your soles when starting a tough scramble. They're a lot grippier if they don't have clay and other materials in the spaces between the lugs, and have rubber exposed to the rock. Even the broken-off head of a junk toothbrush will help clear away the stuff (it also makes a nice nail brush for when you wash your hands).

If you're desperate for grip there's an old climbers' trick you can try: squirt a tiny bit of stove alcohol on the rubber to soften it. It will surely shorten the life of the soles, but will give you a sticky grip for about 15-20 minutes until the rubber dries out again.

If there's ice about, there's no substitute for sharp pointy things. For reasonably civilized ice, I have a pair of Kahtoola microspikes. For really steep scrambles that are iced over, there's no substitute for strap-on crampons (if you wear pac boots or other flexible boots) or step-in ones (if you wear rigid mountaineering boots), and an ice axe or pair of ice tools. Less steep snowy slopes need snowshoes with aggressive crampons built in. But for everything more aggressive than microspikes you also need specialized instruction to use them safely.

[Traveler]

For what its worth, I just had a pair of Asolo boots resoled with Vibram and purchased a new pair with the factory vibram soles. The new boots grip much better on surfaces like very light moss or algae on rocks when it is damp or dry. The resoled boots are not as reliable a grip on similar surfaces. The tread design on the resoled boots is far different than that of the factory sole. I think tread design is a major component over the material. I do note with these Asolo boots as the tread wears down, they get less sure footed once the boot gets over 900 miles on them.

[Tron-Life]

I should have been more specific. I'm looking for trailrunners for normal hiking during the shoulder season with some expectation of very light snow and freezing rain. In another thread I mentioned hiking through the Whites so they will be used for that.

We just read about that tragic fall in the Catskills, and I don't want to be a statistic. I use vibram soled trailrunners but they are really slippery. Shoes have been a nightmare for me since Montrail stopped making the Badrocks, though I think those were vibram too.

I didn't want to talk about shoes or different types specifically, just the adhesive properties of different materials used for shoe soles like rubber, vibram, etc.

[Tron-Life]

" I think tread design is a major component over the material."

I vehemently and respectfully disagree with you sir! I find that the tread of the sole matters very little compared to the adhesive quality of the material in question. Climbing shoes are, after all, almost always flat which increases surface area toaching the rock. For walking shoe the tread can be very modest and still work well, or vise versa. My shoes that are slippery have VERY aggressive treads but don't grip worth a damn!

[Traveler]

" I think tread design is a major component over the material."

I vehemently and respectfully disagree with you sir! I find that the tread of the sole matters very little compared to the adhesive quality of the material in question. Climbing shoes are, after all, almost always flat which increases surface area toaching the rock. For walking shoe the tread can be very modest and still work well, or vise versa. My shoes that are slippery have VERY aggressive treads but don't grip worth a damn!

Thats just my experience, one boot grips very well with Vibram, the other identical pair don't with Vibram. The difference is in the tread design, which leads me to believe its a major component along with adhesion qualities. There may be different materials used in the Vibram soles that have different adhesion qualities, but that would be where the function of design and different materials meet.

[Tron-Life]

Thats just my experience, one boot grips very well with Vibram, the other identical pair don't with Vibram. The difference is in the tread design, which leads me to believe its a major component along with adhesion qualities. There may be different materials used in the Vibram soles that have different adhesion qualities, but that would be where the function of design and different materials meet.

This is why I am trying to figure this out. I've had Vibram shoes that had great traction, the Badrocks, and ones that were not so great, which is basically everything else and I found that tread didn't really matter that much. I'm trying to find out what that key variable is and sole material seems like the best place to start.

Does anyone have thoughts on rubber vs vibram? As far as I know, rubber grips better but is less durable and does not absorb shock as well. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I though there was a longer list of materials than just these two but my mind is drawing a blank.

[Venchka]

Shoe/boot/sole inventory:
Merrill-
(2) Moab Ventilator/Vibram
(2) Radius/Vibram
(1) Radius II/generic knockoff of the original Radius Vibram soles.

Piveta 5/Original Vibram Roccia soles
Asolo 520/Modern Vibram

(2) Teva sandals/Terradactyl soles

(2) Keen Newport H2 sandals/Keen soles

No falls that I remember in conditions from dry granite (Enchanted Rock) to snow/ice/wet ice/mud/etc. in Kazakhstan.

Yesterday I "hiked" about a half mile round trip in a mountain creek filled with teetering/tottering/mossy/slimy rocks, sandy bottom, wet sloping mossy rocks. All the usual fun stuff you find in a creek. Water depth varied from wet rocks to ~2' deep. Moderate current. My granddaughter wore Tevas, grandson in generic water sock shoes and I wore Keen Newport H2 sandals. At no time did we loose our footing or fall.

Rubber vs. Vibram? Are Vibram soles not made of rubber? I have observed that over the decades, Vibram soles have changed with the times and applications. Lighter, thinner, more flexible for trail runners. They still grip.

I wish I could help. I have not had any problems over several decades and changing materials and fashions and a multitude of conditions and terrain.
Good luck.
Ps: one or two well placed, properly used hiking sticks will save your bacon when you put a foot down on a surface slicker than greased glass.

Wayne

[upstream]

Innov8 and Icebug both use various rubber compositions and tread patterns for various traction situations, check them out. Icebug also makes spiky shoes for orienteering in winter. Both are European, traction shoes don't seem to have caught on in the US.

[Meriadoc]

For clarification: Vibram is a company. They make soles from different compounds. The basic premise of any sole is this:
The softer, the stickier, and the quicker it will wear out.
The harder, the longer it will last.

In my experience the design on the sole matters in three primary ways:
(1) How it sheds mud, dirt, and rocks.
(2) How it behaves when wet (think of siping).
(3) Contact area in the major wear spots (like the ball) for friction gripping.

I have had extremely aggressively treaded shoes that slipped a lot. I have had shoes with almost nothing except siping that never ever let go. But a completely flat sole does not perform as well in dirty and muddy conditions. Thus, there are tradeoffs.

On a lot of exposed rock I care more about the rubber compound (that it is softer and sticky).
On a muddy trail I care more about the tread that it will bite into the mud and release that mud when I lift my foot.

I choose to go with sticky rubber, moderate tread, and careful walking/foot placement. The careful walking reduces stress on my joints and slows the wearing down of my shoes (I'm guilty of being a minimalist).

[Meriadoc]

On the practical side of things, I can generally tell if something will grip well. It's a matter of how the rubber compound feels. I rub my fingers on it. I press in with my fingernails. And then I test them on an incline. I can generally tell fairly well how they will behave. The one thing that is sometimes still hit or miss for me is how it will behave on a smooth wet surface.

And for ice, I go back to tread on bicycle tires for this one: cutaway tread is better than aggressive outward tread. (There is a term for the tread I am thinking of but I am not recalling it right now.) I think it is because there is more contact area with the cutaway tread and the cutaways still allow any ice or slush to fall out.

[Another Kevin]

I should have been more specific. I'm looking for trailrunners for normal hiking during the shoulder season with some expectation of very light snow and freezing rain. In another thread I mentioned hiking through the Whites so they will be used for that.

We just read about that tragic fall in the Catskills, and I don't want to be a statistic. I use vibram soled trailrunners but they are really slippery. Shoes have been a nightmare for me since Montrail stopped making the Badrocks, though I think those were vibram too.

I didn't want to talk about shoes or different types specifically, just the adhesive properties of different materials used for shoe soles like rubber, vibram, etc.

If you want more grip on the rock than trail runners offer, you might want to look into 'approach shoes,' as I said earlier. These aren't actual climbing boots, and they're a good bit more robust so that they'll stand up to some hiking as a climber is approaching the wall. They're less durable than trail runners, but I think that simply comes with having stickier soles - the stickier rubber abrades faster.

If there's any chance of freezing rain in the forecast and I'm going anywhere on hard rock or near the timber line, I bring microspikes. They're just the thing for the light snow and ice, where crampons and ice axe would be overkill. I won't chance even a trivial amount of ice barebooted no matter what the soles are made of. Microspikes are what kept me upright when we gt a sudden ice storm on the trip shown in the pictures below. I'm the hiker in green, with the blaze orange pack cover. Three of us (including the guy behind the camera) were wearing microspikes. The guy in blue was wearing screw shoes instead - trail runners with #6 x 3/8 hex head sheet metal screws driven into the lugs. The hex heads function like the studs on studded tires. He stayed upright, too.

[Dogwood]

For highly technical rocky terrain backpacking like the Daks, Whites, Gunks etc under the conditions you speak of(ice, snow, wet, mud, wet exposed roots, wood/stone trail construction, granite slabs, slides, down hikes, etc) in trail runners I certainly would be considering things like tread patterns, lugs, outsole lugs, being extremely mindful of footing, gait, and a host of other shoe characteristics and hiking techniques that go well beyond just sole material.

[rocketsocks]

...here's some interesting reading on different rubbers.

http://www.stealthrubber.com/

[rocketsocks]

...here's some interesting reading on different rubbers.

http://www.stealthrubber.com/

...also this about that.

http://fiveten.com/history

[rocketsocks]

...here's some interesting reading on different rubbers.

http://www.stealthrubber.com/

...also this about that.

http://fiveten.com/history

Tron

I'm not suggesting this is what your looking for, just some info on the evolution, and as a jumping off point. Like the quest for the best venting rain gear, we all are lookin' for the best stickiest traction we can find...tread pattern also has a lot to do with that, smooth or lugged, are we hiking on rocks or mud...finding that happy medium and a one shoe fits all is the big $64,000 dollar question that not only we hikers ask ourselves, but the company's that make the shoes/boots we wear ask themselves too...good luck.

[wormer]

I recently purchased a pair of Vivobarefoot shoes for hiking. The soles are very flexible, which I thought would be great for traction while hiking. I tried them out on the AT Sugarloaf MT area and found that after hiking 5 miles the bottoms of my feet were killing me from being over flexed. It seems that I solved one problem and created another by not having enough stiffness in the sole.

[rocketsocks]

I recently purchased a pair of Vivobarefoot shoes for hiking. The soles are very flexible, which I thought would be great for traction while hiking. I tried them out on the AT Sugarloaf MT area and found that after hiking 5 miles the bottoms of my feet were killing me from being over flexed. It seems that I solved one problem and created another by not having enough stiffness in the sole.

I wouldn't give up on em just yet, unless you have underlying issues, you likely just over did it on this one. Start slower using them intermittent around town, and build up to them. It is likely more your feet that don't have enough chutzpah yet.

[Another Kevin]

For highly technical rocky terrain backpacking like the Daks, Whites, Gunks etc under the conditions you speak of(ice, snow, wet, mud, wet exposed roots, wood/stone trail construction, granite slabs, slides, down hikes, etc) in trail runners I certainly would be considering things like tread patterns, lugs, outsole lugs, being extremely mindful of footing, gait, and a host of other shoe characteristics and hiking techniques that go well beyond just sole material.

Are you talking to me or the original poster? If it's me, we're in violent agreement. I do what you call "highly technical rocky terrain backpacking." and I'm singing a different verse of the same song.

[Another Kevin]

I'm not suggesting this is what your looking for, just some info on the evolution, and as a jumping off point. Like the quest for the best venting rain gear, we all are lookin' for the best stickiest traction we can find...tread pattern also has a lot to do with that, smooth or lugged, are we hiking on rocks or mud...finding that happy medium and a one shoe fits all is the big $64,000 dollar question that not only we hikers ask ourselves, but the company's that make the shoes/boots we wear ask themselves too...good luck.

And for the sort of technical hiking that the original poster is talking about, you have to bring the shoes that suit the season, which makes shoulder season particularly challenging. In any case, the Five Ten approach shoes that you linked to (or the similar pair of La Sportiva that I linked to earlier) seem to be better candidates to replace the Montrail Badrocks than anything that's labeled a 'trail runner'.