Shoe re-soling advice

General Chat
1

Recommendations for climbing shoe re-soling places please. Not the guy at the Castle who takes 3 months :unamused:

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http://www.llanberisresoles.com/ did an excellent job for me earlier this year,

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Thanks! His deadline for receiving shoes is 1st December though, not sure Iā€™d get them there in time with climbing plans this weekā€¦

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Iā€™ve heard great things about the Llanberis guy.

My problem is always ā€œwhen to resole?ā€ - because the window between me noticing that the rubber is gone, and the rand also being gone, is very small. Are you supposed to just get them resoled in anticipation?

Also, @dabarlow, how good is the rubber quality on the resole job? I love my Scarpa Instincts (just broken in a second pair after trashing the first pair completely) but partly thatā€™s because the Vibram X rubber is so goodā€¦

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you can choose any type of rubber when sending for resole. They have both Vibram and Stealth.
for more idiosyncratic shoes, i.e. no edge Geniuses or Futuras, itā€™s best to send them to La Sportiva authorised repair shop like Papoutsi Express in Greece. Cost with delivery is the same, repair quality is great and it takes only a bit longer.

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6

I always find the edges are shot ages before the rands go through.

Always had good results from Llanberis. Also had a few done by Sue at South coast resoles last winter which did pretty well.

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My cunning plan was to use my newer ā€˜tradā€™ shoes while my Scarpaā€™s get resoled. But climbing in them today I chickened out of 3 crux moves due to inability to actually feel what I was pressing on. Stupid clumpy clogs.

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Iā€™ve been happy with the rubber quality.

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Hello from Saas-Fee.

I took the liberty of sending some of your comments to Llanberis Resoles (a friend of mine). I hope you don;t mind. Heā€™s leaving for the alps shortly, hence his 1-Dec deadline.

FYI, he said:
In reply to Tutu: I do loads of no-edge shoes, no need to send to Greece! Iā€™ve had at least 10 pairs this week aloneā€¦ But some UK resolers will ruin them for sure.

In reply to Paulsagar: Rubber quality is the same as original Vibram. As for the resole window, if you are finding it hard to catch them at he right point it can be due to your foot /toe shape and how that makes your shoes wear. Some foot shapes allow for lots of warning others go through the rand before the sole is anywhere near ready for a resole. They can message me for more info (through LlanberisResoles FB page)

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10

Thanks Khalid.

My shitty feet strike againā€¦

11

Do you have particularly pointy feet? This is such an enlightening discussion!

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I think I have particularly bad footwork.

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Iā€™m sure I have particularly pointy feet alsoā€¦

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Can also recommend http://www.cheshireshoe.co.uk/ if that helps.
Had two pairs resoled with them ā€“ top job!

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Thanks Lukas - may weā€™ll go with them considering the deadline of the Llanberis chap!

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I have used them all.

Cheshire shoe repairs do a solid job and were pretty competitive.

I wanted to like Llanberis Resoles, I really did. I sent my fave pair of shoes to be resoled and he did a good job preserving the fit, but the repair delaminated within a month. I sent them back for a reglue, but the same thing happened, and at that point i gave up and added them to a growing collection of rarely used shoes.

Resoling is pretty hit and miss. The things that can go wrong is the shoeā€™s shape or size changes, or it delaminates, or the uppers of the shoe falls apart before you wear through the resole. The best quality shoes resole best - e.g. so high end Scarpas will resolve well.

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Iā€™ve had very good experiences with Cheshire shoes from about 3 or 4 resoles over the years.