Great Concept, But...

By S. Wong Ranked #157 - Climbing Shoes June 6, 2009

Awesome looking shoe, awesome toe rubber, and love the color scheme. That being said, this shoe has much to be desired. Not to say that it isn't a decent shoe, it is, but when I decided to take these for a ride, I expected much more.

I had the FiveTen Jet7s before these and loved them, but the one thing that it lacked was decent toe rubber - on big toe hooks the Jet7s provided very little layering, so it sometimes hurt when you do hard toe hooks. I saw these and was impressed by the design, especially the ribbed toe, and decided to give these a try.

Rubber - The rubber feels like plastic. Despite Mad Rock giving you a sample grit paper to test out how sticky their Science Friction is, it wasn't all that sticky.

Heel - Because the same rubber is applied to the heel, I had a hard time sticking small heel hooks. Even juggy heel hooks feel very insecure. It could be because these shoes have a wider than usual heel compared to my Jet7s, and I have a narrow heel, but I didn't trust my heel hooks to hold at all and in fact slip off quite often. The tread design is a nice concept, but without a soft enough rubber, the treads won't flex and grab right.

Toe - The one thing that shined on these shoes. The ribbed design and rubber covering your little piggies is awesome in every right. No exaggeration here, it felt like I could overhanging toe small jibs with these, and it definitely provided enough thickness to not scream in pain when you're toeing hard.

I'll be going back to my Jet7s in the meantime.

View Details: Mad Rock Con-Flict Climbing Shoe

Helpful Votes: 1 Yes