Quote Originally Posted by Sam W View Post
The grip thing doesn’t quite, erm, stick for me. For years, climbing shoes have looked for stickier rubber. Granted, shoes now are stickier than they were in the eighties. However, this stickiness is short lived & durability is lower on the most sticky soles.

Also, I’m yet to encounter a climbing shoe that sticks to wet rock - it’s common place in the climbing community to acknowledge that these conditions are less than ideal (& mostly wait until it’s dry). Whilst I’m not suggesting fell runners hold out for a dry day (almost entirely pointless!), good grip on wet rock is anathema - after all, stopping distance on cars/bikes etc is increased in the wet even with a winter tyre on. Learning technique is key (blah blah blah!)
fair point, but it is all relative. i believe i have had some fell shoes that are much grippier than others. the first mudclaw i ever had were the ones with grey soles and they were dreadful. other mudclaw were better, and nothing i have tried to date compares with the grip on the VJ Sports iRock2 (Jonathan Alban has said he owes his Glencoe Skyline win to them when he beat Killian who was wearing Salomon and the rocks were wet) - but i haven't tried these new inov8s yet of course.