Over the years, Rockman has had to listen to many climbers debate about which climbing shoe company has the "stickiest" rubber. The thought being that if the rubber on your climbing shoes is "stickier" you will somehow thwart the power of gravity and send any climb with ease,style and/or grace. Rockman has always been a sort of buzz kill during these discussions because Rockman does not think it makes that much difference. Rockman has always believed that a properly fit shoes is way more important than the rubber. Yet the debate continues.
Doing a quick Google search for "stickiest rubber," Rockman found several interesting things. Rockman found lots websites talking about how a specific brand of shoes is the "stickiest." Apparently other rock climbers have chosen to bring the debate to the internet (who would have thought the internet could be used for such a thing). That brand has sort of built its reputation and ads around being the "stickiest." "sticky rubber." These guys have also took to their debate to the internet. The most interesting thing Rockman found was a study sponsored by Spadout. In this article a scientist from the CERN actually devises a test to measure the "stickiness" of climbing shoe rubber. The article uses words the Nimmer boys would really love like "coefficient of friction." They also have equations, so it must be legit.
After all of their testing climbers still commented about how the test and the results were flawed because x,y or z brand didn't "win" in the study. Oh well, the debate continues.
This is the real question climbers should be debating. What climbing shoe company makes approach shoes that do not leave black marks all over Rockman's wife's clean kitchen floor? There is no debating that one, she gets ticked.
In The Spirit Of Adventure,
Rockman
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Mrs. Narc would really appreciate that question being answered as well
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