There's Something About Harry | Personal blog of Brett Bumeter aka brettbum aka Harry

More Traction on Vibram 5 Finger Toe Shoes Better or Less Comfortable?

February 8th, 2010

I love the new look of Vibram 5 Finger Shoes scheduled to start showing up in Europe and the US this spring and summer. Europe seems to be schedule to receive the widest range of new products. All of them seem to feature soles with more traction and grip.

Theoretically, that is a great ideal. Who wants to slip?

Even though I love these shoes in general I have my doubts about the additional traction. I have a pair of KSO shoes that I got last fall. They have very little ‘tread’ or traction. The bottom of the shoe is shaped mostly like feet, sans tread. These can be slippery, especially if you are running down hill on wet blacktop. Having done that many times, I have learned 2 things

My toes and feet are smart enough to recognize when I am slipping and compensate, and
More traction might stop me from essentially hydroplaning just a bit.

In December, I purchased a pair of KSO Treks. I bought them for the extra lining and warmth. The soles are a little thicker and they have some tread.

Unfortunately, I find the tread on the toes to be a little uncomfortable at times. With Vibrams you can feel everything you step on , ‘in a good way. So it stands to reason that if you add lines of tread to the bottom of shoes that your senses can feel through, you will be able to feel the tread between your feet and the road or hard surface you are standing on. Put a sharp, pointy piece of rubber under the shoe, and it feels like a sharp pointy piece of rubber. Great for running trails, but not necessarily great for harder surfaces.

So the newer versions of Vibrams that are schedule to come out, all seem to have more tread. That means more potential to add bumps underneath my feet that don’t need to be there.

Think back to when you were a kid and the sole lining of your running shoes came out. If you happened to try and stick your feet in the shoe and walk around, typically on a rubber grid or mesh, it didn’t feel so hot. I’m wondering if this might be the same thing with the newer Vibrams, which basically don’t have a sole lining at all.

Trade off between softness and wear and tear

It is possible that the rubber used to make the tread could be a softer material than the rubber used in the current KSO and KSO Treks. That might solve the problem, If it were softer the shoes might not hold up as well nor as long as the current models, which don’t seem to wear down at all. (Possibly because you tend to scuff your feet a whole lot less.)

I do like the look of the arches on these shoes which are not that much higher than normal KSO shoes but do look a stronger

Form over Function – Not Quite but moving that direction?

I do think that these new shoes do ‘look more like traditional running shoes.’ That might make them less foreign looking and more acceptable for a wider market. I’m not sure if these will really be better, but better looking sometimes will sell more shoes and that might help the company keep selling these puppies fore years to come.

I may have to stock up on some of the traditional KSO’s just in case they stop selling/making the shoes that I like so much now.

For me, one of the best things about Vibrams is the high level of rich information that my brain receives through my feet, because they can feel the road, feel the trail, feel the grass. I don’t want to run on a slip and slide, but I don’t want to trade off on the comfort and fun either. All that info coming through my toes makes running very fun, very entertaining, that is the thing that has given me a renewed interest in running in the first place. Running has never been difficult for me. It has been very very boring, and Vibrams have helped me reawaken a bit as I pulled my feet out of boxes and let them work the way they were designed to do. a

Sources for several of the pictures in this article