Hot tip

[rydra_wong]

To break in super-tight new shoes faster:

Put your shoes in a plastic bag, closed as tightly as you can. Wrap it in towels soaked in boiling water. After about 5 minutes, the rubber will be warm and pliable enough to get the shoes on with minimal agony.

Put them on and wear them round the house for a while (some people recommend skipping or jumping up and down in them, but that seems unduly masochistic) while they mould to your feet.

Repeated as needed.

(Sharing because I just learned about this trick and have been using it today, with great success. Only traces of water got on the shoes, so looks like you don't have to worry about damaging the leather.)

Comments

[ridicully]

I do not understand what you mean with "wear them around the house for a while". People can actually *walk* in new shoes?

(My new pair is so downturned and asymetrical, even after I've broken them in nicely and can put them on without any major problems, walking in them is next to impossible...)

[rydra_wong]

I do not understand what you mean with "wear them around the house for a while".

In my case, "wear while on the computer and while standing at counter-tops cooking". The fact that I was able to do this at all was a minor miracle only made possible by the towel trick. Definitely not much walking ...

I took them for a first spin on the wall yesterday and while tight, they felt so broken-in I'd have started worrying they'd stretch and be too big, if I didn't remember that it literally took me half an hour to get them on when I first got them out of the box.

[wpadmirer]

Huh. I'll have to share this with my climbing partner. She has a pair of shoes she bought for bouldering that are really tight.

I have arthritis in my feet, so I only buy my shoes 1/2 size smaller. It's as much as I can take.

[rydra_wong]

I'll have to share this with my climbing partner. She has a pair of shoes she bought for bouldering that are really tight.

Yeah, it seems to work like magic.

I have arthritis in my feet, so I only buy my shoes 1/2 size smaller. It's as much as I can take.

I have bunions and one foot that still gets a bit achy from the Lisfranc-ing. OTOH, I'm almost entirely a boulderer, so size my shoes on the basis that I'm going to be taking them off a lot. My "comfy" shoes are the ones I can wear for half an hour without a break.

This weekend (owing to a series of accidents involving forgotten shoes and a bruised heel), I ended up doing a certain amount of climbing in a friend's spare shoes, two sizes too big for me. With a lot of pairs of socks to try to pad them out so they weren't sliding off my feet. It was an interesting experience.

[wpadmirer]

It sounds more interesting than I'd like to experience! (grin) I don't boulder any more, just top rope, so I end up not taking my shoes off at all. Thus the 1/2 size smaller thing.