returned from the Czech Republic

who returned from czech you might ask?

well its not really a who, but a what.

so the question is what returned from czech?

well its none other than my first ever pair of climbing shoes!

why did they decide to take a holiday from my stinky feet and travel all the way to Czech wrapped in plastic in a cardboard box?

well its because they started to have holes in them.

Worn out rubber on the front tip of a climbing shoe is the bane of all climbing shoes! when this happens, the climbers toes are exposed to the harsh enviroment of the outside world. in other words, the climbers toes gets scrapped on every single surface the climber steps on. an exposed toe can result in cuts and bruises to the toes, mainly the big toe. therefore resulting in extream pain and blood lost!

Hahaha! well maybe im just over doing it. but it really does suck.

the pair of shoes that i got was a red pair of Saltic Falco. camp 5 sent a batch of shoes back to saltic, which is based in czech for resoling. so my falcos decided to hitch a ride to get a new set of soles.

here is a brand new pair of new saltic falcos.

looks good doesn't it?

well not until you see the condition mine are in.







real ugly huh?

yeah it would look uglier if it was still wearing its old soles. you can clearly see the newness of the nice shiny black rubber. besides the soles, they also repaired the straps that i broke. well just one of them. here are the pics for the straps and new soles.






here is the new sole. view from the front tip of the shoe.











here is the nice new strap holder thinggy that they replaced.







and this is the strap that they should have also replaced. i mean come on! whats the use of having only one good working strap?








all in all the workmanship is really good. the shoe practically looks brand new except for the pounding that the shoe got on its leather and straps.

besides the quality lets now talk about the fit. so far i have not worn this falcos for almost 7 months now. so what do i think about the fit?

IT FREAKING SUCKS!!!

its been so long that i have not worn it that i have forgot how loose it had become. the resoling did make it a little tighter in certain areas, mainly the arch, but it did not make the shoe any smaller.

today i did a test run on it. the rubber and all were all really nice and sticky. the only drawback was that it was way too loose for me to wear. i was able to wiggle my toes and the fit was uber bad. when i climbed a moderately hard route, it forced me to use so much arm power that i tired myself out before i could finish the route. this route is a route that i am able to complete quite easily with my newer pair of evolvs. the falcos actually made my climbing worst! it took me about 3 climbs with my evolvs to reverse the damage the falcos did to my technique.

so what am i going to do with this pair of shoes?
i am going to throw it into the garbage bin for some lucky climber who comes across it in the garbage dump.

Hahaha! as if. well im going to use it as my trashing shoe.

well i guess thats it for this edition. i doubt that any of you non-climber readers would understand half of what i was saying. if you are a non-climber and you did understand what i said, then you should start thinking of taking up climbing as a hobby.