Women’s Climbing Shoe Review: FiveTen’s Anasazi vs. La Sportiva’s Miura

  

           

            The sports industry nowadays has such rapidly advancing technology in new materials, new protection gear, and new ways to achieve an athletic rush. Rock climbing is a very basic athletic rush; really you just need a rock and a person. With the increase in popularity came an increase in danger, height, and difficulty. Today there are so many different things you need to climb the latest problems: ropes, carabineers, crash pads, chalk; all designed for safety and getting you to the top, weather the top is 20 feet for bouldering which requires no rope but pads to fall on, or you need 50 pounds of carabineers and a car full of rope to send El Capitan. Out of all of the available products, one of the basic necessities to a climber is the shoe.

In the world of climbing there are many types of shoes to fit the multiple styles of climbing and personal preferences. There are also shoes that fall into a middle category of shoes that are not incredibly specific to the style of climbing and make a great choice for climbers that may have a preference to bouldering but do occasionally want to do a multi-pitch route. FiveTen’s Anasazi and La Sportiva’s Miura fit this category of fairly versatile shoes. These shoes are both priced in the similar range and are intended for an experienced climber that needs the performance of the shoe to be top-notch.

            While both shoes provide excellent performance for a variety of climbing styles, the Anasazi is leading in technical climbs and bouldering due to its high friction soles and versatile shape; the Miura is geared towards advanced climbs and longer routs without the comfort of lengthy multi-pitch climbs. Both shoes offer a certain wobble room around their designs to allow them to be used for more than one style and be a great go-to shoe that always ends up in the gear bag.

            The Miura has some great features on the shoe body itself. This shoe features traditional leather uppers making for a customizable fit for the shoe with the leather molding over time to the individual’s foot. The traditional leather also entails that this shoe will stretch significantly over the first few months of use, this shoe is recommended to be purchased two sizes smaller than you want it to end up being. This means that the first time you take your brand new shoes out: it will hurt. The comfort level in the beginning is a small sacrifice to pay for the reward you get if the shoe stretches perfectly to create a custom fit for your foot. Many climbers have come to terms with the fact that their are just going to hurt. Period. Climbing shoes have been traditionally made out of leather that made them last longer but meant that the stretch factor made the first few months of climbing excruciating. With the newer technologies, the stretching factor has been limited to a certain extent, but the Miura will still need to fit tighter than comfortable for the first few ascents.

The comfort level of this shoe is dramatically increased with the overlapping Dentex lining inside the shoe. The lining provides extra comfort for longer climbs and a snug fit. The La Sportiva Miura also utilizes the new trend in climbing shoes: the speed lacing system. This adjustable lacing system provides all the customizability of traditional lacing and locks it in allowing you to slip these shoes on quickly to hop on that climb right away. Clearly, one of the most important features to an advanced climber outside of comfort is the rubber lining the sole. The whole point of buying specific shoes that may be uncomfortable is to be able to stick to the rock. The La Sportiva Miura features a 4mm Vibram XS Grip 2 rubber sole, which is specifically designed to stick to those slick footholds that make all the difference when climbing slabs.

            The body of the Five Ten Anasazi gears towards a different preference in climbers. This shoe features a completely synthetic upper which lowers the customization of the shoe provided by stretching leather, but provides ease in fit and care. The synthetic uppers provide relief from resorting to guess work required to figure out how much smaller you need to buy a shoe to account for stretching. A synthetic upper on a climbing shoe eliminates all of the guesswork due to very minimal stretching of the material over time and makes that painful break in period irrelevant. No more jumping down and instantly throwing off your shoes to nurse your throbbing toes. The Anasazi’s synthetic uppers and lack of lining also make this shoe a breeze to keep clean. Every climber has experienced the smell of athletic feet, while we may deny that our feet are that smelly, they are and everyone knows this. With leather shoes the only cleaning that can be done is by aerosol sprays or hand washing shoes and wearing them wet until they dry. While this prevents them from deforming from the shape that you spent months stretching them into, it is one of the worst feelings in the world: cold wet leather on your feet. The synthetic shoes can easily the washed, even in a washing machine, and left to air dry without the worry of changing shape on you.

 FiveTen’s Anasazi also provides a fast alternative to traditional laces and makes up for some of the loss of customized shaping with the synthetic material by having two Velcro straps, no longer for five year olds, to secure the shoe into a no-slip fit. The prime feature of the Anasazi is FiveTen’s break through rubber: Stealth C4. This revolutionary rubber has very high friction making smearing on virtually nothing possible. Even slippery limestone knobs won’t be a constant excuse for not flashing a route.

            The toe shapes of both shoes really bring out the differences in climbing styles that the shoes are marketed for. The low volume toebox of the Anasazi makes it a clear choice for bouldering with its specialization for toe hooks and precision. FiveTen’s Anasazi has a very conservative toe shape with very little curve making it incredibly versatile in climbing styles and even allows crack climbing with the flatter shape. In contrast, La Sportiva’s Miura features an average fitting toebox with a large performance curve and high asymmetry allowing for very advanced footwork on nearly non-existent footholds. The curvature of the toe on the Miura prevents it from being comfortable in cracks and makes it less desirable for bouldering due to the lack of toe-hooking capability. Both shoes can absolutely be used for any style of climbing, however, the differences in design make then more suited for particular styles over others. Both shoes also feature the latest rage in a fitted heel cup to prevent any slipping out by your foot on overhangs.

            FiveTen and La Sportiva are both well-known companies in the climbing world and are known specifically for the quality and reliability of their products. Neither of these shoes is an absolutely awful choice for a climber to make, the differences in the products aim towards differences in climbing styles and personal preferences. Both shoes are good products. The choice in shoes is really a personal one that changes from climber to climber. The FiveTen Anasazi shoe is easier to clean due to the synthetic uppers making it possible to actually wash it in a machine without worrying about changing the shape. This shoe would also be easier to fit due to the minimal stretch. I would overall recommend the FiveTen Anasazi because of its versatility and simplicity in care.

Critical Mass: Everyone listens to Walter Mossberg

This was a really interesting article. It is pretty amazing to think that just writing reviews of everyday products can make someone so much money. Mossberg does a great job of writing specifically what people want to know from the standpoint of a middle ground critic for the masses. He does not go overload on the technical aspects and really focuses on how the average person would experience the product. I can see why people read his column, I even went and found a few of his previous articles and read them. He has a certain way of making you just trust his opinion on things. With the way the world is currently evolving in the realm of technology it is really useful to have someone like Walter to reviews the products, it is impossible to sift through all of the personal blogs to form an accurate picture of a product, and it is incredibly time consuming to try out every single product on display to the fullest potential before you make your choice. Today, new technology is coming out every day, and while it may look flashy or market to be the “technology of the future” sometimes even the most well planned products still fall extremely short of the general consumer’s expectations.

            I really liked the example that Ken Auletta provided with Mossberg analyzing the new Samsung phone and how he really bases much of his critique off of comparison with other similar products and the general thoughts that any consumer will have the moment they lay their hands on the device and find out any specs about it. I feel like if I was a product designer I would attempt to get him to look at every prototype before launching to fix all of the major points that he addresses in his critique, not only for a better review but for a better selling product. If we just consider the phone world right now, it is ridiculous how many phones are put out a year. When you go to a company store, there are 30-60 phones available at one time for a customer to buy. Some of these variations are needed especially those in prices but there are just so many options and so many of them don’t even look appealing let alone have any basis for easy and useful functions that it is surprising to me that a company would ever even attempt to distribute the product.

            I have come to have a very strong appreciation of writers that do review articles, interview articles, and critiques. While the author’s voice is clearly there, they do such an amazing job focusing on providing the reader with information that everything reads smoothly and you get exactly what you want out of the piece. When I read this article about Walter Mossberg, I almost forgot to focus on the author’s style and what exactly they were doing with their writing; I was caught up in the information I was receiving. 

Town Crier Speaks One Act Festival

Last week was the brief run of "Town Crier Speaks: One Act Festival" in Rausche Auditorium at the University of Puget Sound. This series of six student written and directed one-acts was an impressive event of young talent. The producers: Ella Wrenn, Taylor Griffin, and Daniel Smith did a wonderful job of organizing the event and picking some wonderful pieces to showcase. The event was so popular that on the last night, the audience was overflowing the seats and caused producer Taylor Griffin to announce that it was “Dangerously awesome how many people” were there, in reference to fire safety codes. While I was forced to find a comfortable spot on the floor due to the severe shortage of seats, I left the showcase laughing and wishing I could see it many times over.

            The lack of spectacular lighting, audio, and sets only did wonders to focus all of the attention on the amazing scripts written by the students and the phenomenal acting that was on stage. While everyone did a wonderful job, a few actors in particular set the standard so high it was hard to even compare them to the other students.

            In the first act “Coroner Elections” written by Hayley Hilmes and Directed by Lizzy Burton, “Mr. Birdman” (played by Jacob Tice) was exceptional. He had the perfect ironic mix of a sleazy politician and salesman wrapped up in one very confident personality. The script was very ironic and was very enjoyable even through some of the gruesome details that naturally had to come up in coroner elections. Theresa Gabrielli, who played the elections mediator, provided some amazing comic relief in her silent actions while the two candidates were engaged in ridiculing one another. The roar of the crowd’s laughter almost drowned out any other sound when she began to eat a piece of paper out of sheer frustration.

The best acting of the night however was by Jesse Baldridge playing a new employee that is just having the worst possible first day at work. “Did Someone Order a Chicken Wrap?” written by Caitie Auld and directed by Abi Dehner was a fairly simple plot with some wonderfully original problems that Jesse’s character “Mike” has to deal with at the office. Jesse not only did a wonderful job at the verbal portion of the acting but he managed to convey so much emotion through his professional quality actions and facial expressions. The desperation in his actions, especially when he is trying so hard to mend a serious misunderstanding between him and his new boss’s wife, was just pouring from him in his voice and emotions. One of the best-acted scenes had to be the slow motion scene of “Mike” running to grab his boss’s cell phone and proceed to smash it on the ground. The overall question of “how is he going to deal with this” by the audience was answered beautifully as Jesse picks up the phone and clutches it to his chest and sputters “Well, this doesn’t look good” and with a cringe continues to say “I suppose you’re wondering why I just crushed your blackberry on the floor…” and just before he has to explain himself on that matter the scene must continue with even more trials for “Mike” to awkwardly fumble through. This was also the only act in which there was some sort of technical assistance, while “Mike” is busy attempting to work on the company computer a constant well known computer error sound clip is played to which Jesse responds with perfectly timed outbursts of frustration. This one-act really left me wishing that it were merely a preview of a full show that might be making its appearance later in the semester.

         The most original idea for a script of the night came from the second act “The Race”, written by Georgina Cohen and directed by Nolan Frame. The opening caught me rather off guard with a sound clip describing a sexual encounter, but any hesitation I began with vanished in a cloud of laugher as five students erupted from behind the curtain dressed in white plastic and running in place as sperm, racing towards the egg. The entire play consisted of a brilliantly created script presented as these 5 sperm ran in place. The few interludes by extra competitors only added to the wonderfully realistic biological dynamic of variation in gametes. It will be a long time until I forget the impact of the creativity, talent, and sheer energy within this play. I know I would never be able to recite lines while running in place for 10 minutes straight.

            The acts “The Surprise Party” written Taylor Griffin and directed by Abi Dehner, and “Independence” written by Rollie Williams and directed by Hayley Hilmes did not start out as being all that wonderful in my opinion. “The Surprise Party” seemed to have uninteresting lines, boring characters, and a very bland plot; I was in for a big surprise (maybe I should have anticipated such from the title) when a seemingly average character turned out to not be know by anybody at the party. “Scott” played by Joshua Willis is a loveable character with few friends and is just heartbreaking in the production. Joshua does a great job at being sad and heartbroken while still remaining socially awkward and not letting you forget that he did end up at this party without being invited. He captures the hearts of not only the characters in the scene but of the audience as well which let out many “awww’s” at his loneliness on his birthday. “Independence” struck me at first as using too many strong words without reason and that it just made no sense to even place those words in the context of the signing of the Declaration of Independence purely from a historical stand point, even if it was comedy. But through the historical comedy and the constant snippy quotes thrown around by Reeves Richards and Michael Armstrong, the quarrels between the writers is brought about to be a very funny interpretation of the historical event. While it is not realistic I ended up really enjoying the act after feeling the true argument and emotions buried underneath the seemingly strewn about bickering and silly shirts.

            In the act “Thermometer” written by Joey Fetchel and directed by Courtney Weller; Emily Leong, Patrick Shoop, and Connan Jones did a fantastic job at imitating small children squabbling and playing with vivid imaginations. While they actors did a phenomenal job at portraying how we perceive small children, the constant shrieking made it difficult to understand some of the lines. I enjoyed the overall lighthearted feel of this production but I was left thoroughly confused by the ending. The imaginary person, which was supposedly seen by the other children eventually, was described as having unblinking eyes and I was left with an uneasy feeling that the children had found one of the bodies mentioned in the first act “Coroner Elections”.

            I left this series of performances in complete shock at how much talent a bunch of students were able to display not only in acting and directing but the genius that was involved in the writing of the one act plays. The creativity not only in original phrases but also in completely original concepts was astounding. I am looking forward to seeing the next round of Town Crier next year and am willing to come early to ensure a seat and a clear view of the stage.

            

"The Dumbing Down"

This article by Emily White seemed to be more of her complaint about losing her job and a critique on the poor choice made by the Times. I feel like she makes a good point only in the fact that without art critics, some art, productions, and music would never be discovered in the same way. While this fact is true, the new constantly in the loop social networks and break out of mass emails, group invites, and texts have done a lot to bring hidden art out in the open. It all starts with a status update which friends "like" and say they will go to, and by word of mouth and News Feeds, all of a sudden there are 500 more people at your event that you have never met in your life. Art critics may be helpful for something like a play and can offer a more refined opinion of art but they still can't tell you aspects that may stand out more in your mind that they did not even mention in an article. I do think art critics are important in local newspapers and really do help a community stay connected to the arts and also helps people maintain a certain expectation of art forms. It forces artists to make sure they give their all in case of a "bad review". The main thing that bothered me in this article really was the large central portion with the falling words. This article just seems dramatic and screams that Ms. White is so important that now that she has lost her job, art will disappear... FOREVER!

On a completely different and less critical hand, I did enjoy Emily White's writing style. Her arguments and points were very easy to follow and went along the same paths as my brain does when it starts analyzing information. 

ETHEREAL ART: SIMPLE OBJECTS AROUSE AWE AND FEAR IN THE RIGHT LIGHTING

This art review by Yvonne Magno struck me as a little wordy especially after finishing Matthew Stibbe's suggestions on writing. She uses a lot of descriptive factors in describing the scene that you can see when you enter the gallery. It was interesting to attempt to see what the author was seeing. I was absolutely left with an eerie sense at the end of the article, which I believe is what Magno was going for. The only problem with achieving this goal is that I am not so sure that I would want to go visit this gallery after reading it. I am a little curious to see the actual photograms but might prefer to look them up on a google image search. The best part of this article I thought was not only her ability of getting an eerie and creepy feeling across to the audience, but also her use of describing the artistic process. I personally had no idea what a photogram was and without the description of how complex the whole thing is I would not have thought that this was a showcase worth seeing if it is just outlines of stuff. I already have a larger appreciation of this technique as an art form without ever seeing it.

"How to make money writing for the web"

This brief and well put together piece by Matthew Stibbe was very informative and was one of the good examples of Web writing that he mentioned in his piece. It was impressively easy and interesting to read even though it was mostly broken up into bullet points and did not present many novel ideas, I did not feel like it was only telling me what common sense had already provided me with. While I was never planning to write for a living, I could see this even being a great past time with the right skill set. I do not think of myself as a strong writer in this sort of field but with practice, the type of practice he lays out as a battle plan, I could see myself attempting to do this as a side job regardless of what I do with my future. This form of writing for a living is appealing because it is completely controlled by you. I feel like this is a hard business to begin and would require a supply of savings to carry you through even up to a year before you have enough clients and are well known enough to be making a living doing this. I always have a hard time visualizing myself being able to be successful in a writing career but Stibbe points out some interesting facts that if you have the talent, it is easy to find clients based on the question "are you happy with the copy on your website?" The web is such an important feature today in terms of advertising and having a fully functioning business that people are willing to go to outside sources to ensure that their site is promoting them in the best way possible. 

"News You Can Lose"

Much of this article was a rewording of previous ideas on the doom of newspapers and how they are failing largely due to the new demands of consumers. I found the point about how consumers are driving this issue for the newspapers not because they do not want to read them, but that the modern person seeks news instantly and for free. I began reading the New York Times online a long time ago purely because it was free that way, now with people having iPhones and other ways of accessing the internet easily, it seems almost silly that an individual would pay for a newspaper subscription to their door rather than look it up online for free. Many businesses still order the paper subscription due to the commonality of reading a paper in a cafe for instance, but it would seem that it may be time to start charging people atleast a one-time fee for downloading that NYtimes app for their iPhone. While the ideal situation would be that newspapers can still make a profit from donors and advertisements, but it may be the appropriate time to start chargins some sort of small fee for the news to keep afloat. While some may argue that people would just switch to other providers, I know many people that are dedicated to specific papers and would not easily switch. Once one paper makes that step I feel like others will follow and it will become the norm for pay a couple dollars to have the "news at your fingertips".

"To Save Themselves, US Newspapers Put Readers to Work"

Unlike the previous article I wrote about "Goodbye to Newspapers?" this article has a wonderful feeling of newspapers putting up a fight to stay in the game. Jeff Howe starts out the article brilliantly with an introduction I will not quickly forget with the image of the running shoes in a box. It was a great start to an article which specifically focused on newspapers adapting and running to catch up with technology and a changing audience. The statistics are all there but they are also very balanced. The first part of the article quotes that "newspaper circulation has declined 30 percent since 1985" but towards the end, the local Cincinnati Enquirer has been able to boast a 44 percent increase in advertisement sales just in the past year. This article was very interesting in the sense that it specifically pointed that while newspapers have the chance to survive, they will have to adapt to holding a slightly different position in society. The shocker in this article was when Linda Parker talks about all the articles she receives from civilians and how she will actually print/post all of them. I feel like this is an injustice to the journalism profession. The fact that they are letting people just put anything into "news" is one of the things that is making the newspaper less appealing. When articles become simple and poorly written, people are not going to go looking towards newspapers as something to read, at that point you may as well read a biased blog by some unknown writer in who knows where. I feel like while society may be pushing to be more involved, they are not willing to do the work that really needs to accompany writing a true journalistic piece of work.

"Goodbye to Newspapers?"

This article was very sad in terms of the reality that a lot of new companies specifically those in the field of traditional newspapers are failing at a large scale. The companies are just not being run in the light of putting out news to the community and instead are run like a typical economically efficient business, which means budget cuts and staff cuts, which in turn means that the quality of the news drops at a dramatic rate. While I agree with many points of this article, I do not think that the newspapers are purely failing from the business end or the journalistic end as he mentions at the end of the article with the war misrepresentation and failing to act. I think a lot of the loss in readers comes strictly from the readers themselves. While the internet may just be an accumulation of real articles by a variety of news companies, only the yahoo or google versions are read so most newspapers get minimal reports in views. There is also the argument of the loss of reading in general due to the internet and leading media technology (refer to previous post on "Is Google making us Stupid?"). Having televised news has also accompanied the destruction in readership of newspapers. Most people come home from work, eat, some dinner, and watch the news. If they can get the news while blankly staring at the screen, reclining on the sofa, and letting their brain shut off, why would they do it any other way? I think that the last part of the article about the misrepresentation by the media on the war in Iraq, while pertinent, is still the same issue that newspapers faced even before this era of low readership and increased media technology. It is sad to see that the prestigious journalist is being replaced by a plastic celebrity that pretends to be in the know about the real world. The news is also very skewed to the what people really want to hear about (or what they think the people want to hear). I feel like newspapers are fairly doomed in a large extent due to the general public failing at following on current events and caring about more than Justin Beiber.