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Fritz
Trad climber
Choss Creek, ID
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What a great thread! Sorry I wasn't around earlier to contribute this October 1972 Galibier Ad from Off Belay Magazine.
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F10
Trad climber
Bishop
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EB's with customized leather upper
EB's in action
New RR's
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carlos gallego
Ice climber
Spain
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Mar 10, 2013 - 07:45am PT
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... years before than I discovered the "Paragot and EB"... I used the "supercalcarea" boots... rigid and paintful...
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richross
Trad climber
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Mar 15, 2013 - 11:56pm PT
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More EB's!
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jabbas
Trad climber
phx AZ
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Mar 16, 2013 - 12:15am PT
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For some reason EB's still look so , so cool! Must be the blue and natural white . Love and Rockets !!!
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docsavage
Trad climber
Albuquerque, NM
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Mar 18, 2013 - 03:24pm PT
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The bare foot now, that was something. Throw a couple leather spats on it & you're good to go for Dresden ( ... or maybe that was later, around '76-'78 ish).
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Kironn Kid
Trad climber
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Mar 18, 2013 - 03:40pm PT
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I actually still have my original EB's from that period. I'll have to post a snap of them.
EB's on the left. Wore them up Half Dome.
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Abissi
Trad climber
MI
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Mar 18, 2013 - 03:55pm PT
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I used to wear a pair of Galibier Black Beautys. Full length steel shank Which made them really cold to wear in the middle of Winter) full umber rans and a Vibram sole. I traded mine in for a down payment of a 67 Plymouth Belvedere from a friend
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geiger
Trad climber
Doylestown pa
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Mar 18, 2013 - 04:52pm PT
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We quickly learned to put a leather wrap around the upper of the EB's as well as a haul loop on the back.
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SammO
Social climber
Ohio
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Mar 18, 2013 - 09:19pm PT
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I worked for Neptune at his first shop, circa 1974-5, then 1980 did the Boulder Bootworks w/ Scott Johnston in a tiny hole behind a sports bar and
King Soopers; many memories of the shoe trade, tho' only a fraction of Komito's history. Did a replacement rubber flaps on Lefoux Boots, a real
bitch; broke scores of needles trying to stitch thru the nylon midsoles of Choonards/aka Vasque Ascenders - the stiffest rock shoe-boot ever made. Kevin Donald I recall saying how he was standing nonchalantly on a thin faceclimb in Eldorado when his foot dropped an inch and scared him - he'd been standing on some invisible nothing an inch above the hold he thought he was standing on all along!
I bought my first rock shoes from Ski Hut, mail order, about 1969, and amazingly they fit- Voyager fake kronhofers that were actually far better than the German originals by virtue of a stiffer midsole that gave a better edging shoe.
EBs were a superior shoe for all-around use mostly because the rubber was stickier - Galibiers and others had astonishingly hard, brittle soles that broke off in chunks, sort of like old superball rubber. The RD was ridiculously overbuilt, with actual fullgrain leather outers, smooth side in against your foot. The EB peculiarity was the thin canvas upper actually was a laminate with a thin rubber layer which made the shoe upper totally unbreathable, if not entirely waterproof. This certainly aided in the heat and sweat build-up which caused the notorious stench and inner cardboard rot.
I had a working fan system that drew air down thru the gluing table top to keep the brain damage to a minimum, and one day I knew instantly that
somebody had come in, because I was hit by an overpowering stench - the guy had EBs that had a few chunks of rotten cardboard left inside the soggy shoes - against every plea, I kicked him out with dead skunk shoes in hand.
The sidepanel biz was a real cottage industry, essential to crack-climbing durability, but also easy to customize with colors and designs.
Original Fires were strangely wonderful in even thin cracks, because the solid rubber rand box toe gave great protection when torqueing toes, and the substantial midsole made handcracks almost comfortable! You had to "smedge" on thin holds, which created the unique worn hole under the big toe, before the actual sole edge itself wore down.
My own best edging shoes were the original Megas, the first odd toe-down designs that also featured a weird space beneath one's heel- you could put
a marble in your heel, and not feel it while climbing! Only trouble was it took 6 months to break them in. After that, I could edge on nickels,
without strain. Rubber was both sticky (nowhere near Fires, tho) yet hard enough to not distort off small edges.
Patrick Edlinger's Dolomite shoes were IMO really mediocre, stiff foresole but slippery rubber jobs that made his Snowbird win even more
impressive.
5.10 rubber eventually surpassed the earlier Boreal and Sportivas for stickshion, but Vibram and others have caught up, and differences are negligible. Shoe quality of 5.10 has generally been awfully poor, so how good does original rubber have to be to offset bad fit, etc? I worry about the future availability of resoling sheet rubber now that Adidas owns the company; some MBA genius will surely decide they can make more money by just selling new shoes, without recognizing how cheap halfsoles have become integral to affordable footwear. Maybe Chuck kept his aftermarket options open, and can still sell rubber outside the 5.10 corporate shell? That would be really shrewd of him.
I hate the current extreme incurved downtoed shapes, and suspect many people with pronation issues are improperly served by them- straighter
lasts are what runners who pronate need, and climbers should be no different.
Last, of course, Mr. Gill's photo circa 1959 isn't fair, because we all remember how every shot of him makes it look like his feet are on holds, when the reality is he's always entirely suspended by his fingertips alone - especially true with RDs!
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Don'tKnowHim
Social climber
California
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Mar 18, 2013 - 09:33pm PT
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As to the original picture of this posting, the shoe on the top that looks like a hiking boot is a "kletterschuh." A few people back in the day used it for general scrambling, sometimes as a cheap "aid" or approach shoe.
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jabbas
Trad climber
phx AZ
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Mar 18, 2013 - 09:34pm PT
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Thanks SammO for a little if ever looked into art of reviving the climbing shoe. Sending of our shoes to be resoled had a certain "dark magic" feeling . Enter 5.10 rubber and we felt like we could make new shoes outta thin air - ha ha . It is way tougher than the little page of ' structions made it out to be. A way cool thread -- Thanks .
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Redwood
Gym climber
West Sacramento CA
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Mar 18, 2013 - 09:46pm PT
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PAs: I still have mine. Could not bear to part with them. I remember all those others, too. At one time, Cortinas were de rigeur at Stony Point. Robbins Boots: I saw a British climber lead Coonyard Pinnacle in Robbins Boots.
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Freecloud
climber
California
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Mar 19, 2013 - 01:39am PT
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What about Fire's? (fee-rays)? Weren't they around during the same time? Can't remember what I had first.
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Kironn Kid
Trad climber
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Mar 19, 2013 - 09:52am PT
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No. The Fire's came much later. It was because of Matt Cox, Largo and Bachar that I went with the original EB's. I wore them so tight, that they killed the nail bed on my big toes. Decades later, my large toe-nails still grow out very thick and wavy. Necessitating that I remove them about once a year.. Afet the EB's, I went to the original La Sportva (Purple-yellow model)shoes.
Harness? We learned and climbed in Swami belts. Those were the days...
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qigongclimber
climber
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Mar 20, 2013 - 08:08pm PT
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RDs were around at least as early as 1972 because that's when I climbed the East Buttress of El Cap in them.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Mar 20, 2013 - 09:51pm PT
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RDs were around at least as early as 1972
Mid 1960s at least. The Kronhofers in the first photo on this thread were used as state-of-the-art rock climbing shoes in the late 1950s and early 1960s, not merely as approach or scrambling shoes. I remember Kamps climbing in a pair in the Needles then. I had a pair also. But my favorites before RDs were Zillertals (very stiff, for edging), then PAs.
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