Finally—and this is fairly picky: I think the new thin green leather sleeve protecting the lower eyelets should be on the other side of the shoe. Tommy Caldwell claims otherwise, but I’ve already got the abrasion on the outside edge of the shoe to back up my opinion. Not that this has made any difference at all in my climbing… it’s simply the fact that having it on what feels like the wrong side seems gimmicky. But maybe TC and I just have different pain points when it comes to hand crack..." go to full review

The Five Ten Crawe is very stiff and bulky, it almost feels like you’re wearing a high-performance ski boot when you first put it on. The shoe softens a bit over time, but not by much. If you like soft and sensitive shoes, this probably won’t be a go-to. I would recommend the Five Ten Crawe to intermediate climbers looking to step up their game and dive into more high-performing climbing footwear because it provides a lot of support and performance. More advanced climbers, however, might..." go to full review

More than two decades later, I had a similar experience with the Tenaya Tanta lace. The shoe is soft, which is good, but it lacks any support for edging. I had the following experience while bouldering on granite: the rubber repeatedly rolled up and over my toe when I tried to stand on slopey granite smear and my foot kept blowing off the hold. To make sure that I hadn’t sustained a sudden stroke that blighted my climbing proprioception and understanding of all technique and movement, I..." go to full review

To be clear, the Quantic is certainly a cut above more than half of the climbing shoes on the market, and I’d take it over most other brands. It’s just not my favorite of Scarpa’s sterling lineup of climbing shoes. I found the Quantic to be a bit too stiff for my taste, which led to a lengthy break-in period. The thick straps made the shoe feel just a bit too clunky. And it feels as if the shoe is lacking some of the more aggressive tensioning other Scarpa shoes have, which delivers the..." go to full review

When it comes to performance, the Strange has been designed to deliver the purest power in EB’s line-up. The shoe’s profile is typical of the EB range, favouring aggressive asymmetry over modest downturn to pump power through the toe, but it’s the more pronounced point at the tip of the shoe that gives the Strange its edging focussed focal point. Featuring a full midsole (a 1mm plastic insert that sits between the fabric and the rubber) and further reinforcement under the toe, the super..." go to full review