Vibram Fivefingers Survey

David,

I have pretty much stopped hiking in them. I have the KSO model. Reasons are:

Feet get really dirty. You can wear socks (Inji toe socks) to help.

They work well on maintained trails, but off trail not so much fun.

Stuff gets caught in the toes.

Easy to stub your little toes on roots and rocks.

They are hot.

They really stink after a while.

I bought some KSO's and I've used them a couple times, but like Nick I don't use them anymore.

My reasons are:

1) Too easy to badly stub toes (pinky toe). It's a matter of time before I break a toe. This reason wouldn't apply to really nicely groomed trails.

2) A pain to get on. Supposedly this gets easier over time, but after a couple hikes my 5Fingers still take WAY too long to get on. I don't want to spend 2-5 minutes wiggling my toes in when I'm busting for a pee in the middle of the night.

3) Easy to bruise the bottoms of your feet walking on rocks etc.

I still have mine and I'll use them occasionally for running or as water shoes, but I won't use them anymore on technical trails.

With practice you can put them on as fast as a pair of shoes and socks… or is it socks and shoes? Maybe even faster. But at first it is very frustrating. I still wear mine a lot, just not for hiking most of the time.

Thanks, guys. This is helpful. Maybe I'll look closer at the Merrill Trail Gloves (not withstanding its ugliness) and the New Balance Minimis.

David,

I have experimented with several pairs of minimalist shoes over the past 3 years, although not the two shoes you mentioned. Overall, they did not last, especially if you hike off-trail. That is something I would try to factor into your decision. Check with Craig W, I think he has gotten good wear out of his NB MT101's.

"With practice you can put them on as fast as a pair of shoes and socks"

I suspect that how easy they are to put on varies depending on a persons toes. My toes are fairly thick and squished close together. There's no way all 5 toes will slide in at the same time. I need to individually massage each toe into it's place by pulling it away from the toe beside it and working it part way in. I get each toe a little in and then go through them again and get them in a bit further until finally they are all the way in. Very slow going…

I don't have a lot of miles on them yet, but I'm really liking my NB MT101's because they fit great and have a rock plate to avoid brusing.

I have VFF Sprints and no longer wear them often.

I've done a few short/easy backpacking trips in them, for which they were fine.
But anything is fine when you're only doing short, easy trips.
But for trail running, which I do at least 4 days/25 miles a week, I don't like them. One lapse of focus and you've got a broken toe. I far prefer a closed footbox- kick something and the impact is spread, more or less. The Sprints, with an open top, also let too much dirt/rock in. I also find VFFs to be very hot/sweaty compared to other shoes. I don't think they breath well.

My two favorite shoes are the New Balance Minimus Trail and MT101.
I've got about 200 miles in my first pair of Minumus, countless miles in MT100s/101s. The Minimus is pretty similar to a Merrel Trail Glove, but I believe has a little more thickness in the heel…which I think is better for high mileage, but probably not too significant of a difference. I tried both; the Minimus felt better to me.

I think the MT101 is a great distance shoe if it fits you- it's getting thicker in the heel than the others, but has what I believe to be a great rock plate, which I find important for backpacking long miles. I've done many long backpacking trips in many different pairs of MT100s/101s. I think their durability is great, considering they're a lightweight shoe.

I think Nick Gatel and some other runners I know were far ahead of the "minimal" trend because of their running backgrounds. Nick's son is also a competitive runner. In the running world, flat, lightweight, sub-7 ounce shoes have been popular for a very long time, especially amongst racers/XC runners.

I think it's funny that people talk about "fad" with minimal shoes. There's nothing fad about it in my opinion. If anything is a fad (historically speaking), it's probably giant, overengineered "shoes" with soles like marshmallows.
I think the general public is merely catching on to what XC runners, track athletes, and many other racers have known for years; a flat, minimal, lightweight shoe promotes better form and speed. Show me a fast, elite runner that lands on their heels.
There's a reason for that.

I think our pal Nick G. has been a little ahead of his time concerning backpacking footwear. I know Nick has experimented with many versions of racing flats over the years, including Asics Piranhas (road racing flats, 4oz. each!). Some of the most popular out there are the Saucony Shay XC and the Saucony Kilkenny XC line. I did a ~60-70 mile, +/- 20,000', 2.5 day trip with him…I believe he wore some Shays. I think that's bold…if you've ever seen Shay XCs.

Do the benefits of light weight, flat shoes cross over into backpacking? I think so, mainly in weight, stability, and fast drying. But there is a key difference, in my opinion: When running in minimal shoes, you have to run with a mid-forefoot strike. But when you walk, it's typically heel-toe. Heel-toe form prevents your arch and Achilles from taking shock out of the landing- impact goes more or less from your heel to your knee. That's why I prefer the MT101 for backpacking; there's enough heel there for shock, but not so much it's unstable.

I love minimal shoes, but I think they're better for running. Add 20 pounds, a walking heel-toe stride, and plenty of rocky/sharp terrain, and you're looking at added leg/foot fatigue/pain…not what I want when I'm walking 30 miles in a day. Can you adapt? Sure. How long do you want to spend doing that, to what end?

For short trips, anything is doable…go barefoot, wear flipflops…I'm mainly talking high mileage (20+) consecutive days.

It ultimately depends on what you're doing and why you're doing it.

That's my take on it all.

Whew.

My son claimed to love his last weekend in the Davis Mountains, but I'm thinking it had more to do with me telling him not to wear them. Looked like a painful 5 miles in to me. And boy they do stink.

Read this:
http://asthecrowflies.org/2010/12/14/hiking-barefoot-vibram-five-fingers-on-the-pct/

A guy came on my local Sierra Club hike this weekend. He wore them during the 9 miles of serious creek hiking we did. He seemed pretty happy but someone said he thought he heard him say he might have broken both his pinky toes. He had boots for the rest of the hike and he wore them.

Craig,

Excellent summation. I have pretty much gone back to my Salomon's. They are just better all around for hiking. On our trip I did wear the Shay's and if you remember, I got a pretty serious foot injury on day 1, because there is no rock plate. Big problem with these kinds of shoes. Seems like the MT101 are the exception.

Here is something interesting, since I did a lot of miles in miminalist shoes the past couple of years (run/hike). Last year I did a hike from Marion Mountain Campground-Mt San Jancinto-Tram. Basically all up and all down. I hiked with a friend who is an engineer, and he has a tendency to constantly analyze everything. I led the hike most of the way, and he mentioned that 50% of the time my heel never touched the ground. Totally sub-conscious on my part. That might change if I stop wearing these light shoes.

Joe,

We always said the same thing as kids too?
:)

I bought some KSOs before they became popular and wore them a few times including on some shorter hikes. I haven't worn them in at least a year now though. In town I prefer my SoftStar Roos and for hiking/backpacking a minimalist trail runner works fine.

Nick – My heels only hit the ground much if I have on a shoe with a decent heel rise (which I don't wear if at all possible). I started competitive running when I was 12 (31 now) and have always been a mid/fore striker, even though I ran in Saucony Jazz and Nike Pegasus back then. Walking seems a bit more difficult to avoid a heel strike for most people though.

I wore my KSO Treks this past weekend on an overnight. My feet were a little sore afterwords, I badly bruised one toe, and put a hole in the big toe that I didn't notice until I got to my car.

I don't have any issues getting mine on. I wear them pretty much every day and have for a few months.

The comments to that article include a few commenters who switched from Chacos to VFFs and then back to Chacos. Maybe I should stick with my Chacos.

I do wish Chaco would make a "Chaco" light with a flatter midsole–something like those old Teva river guide sandals, with the 5.0 rubber outsoles. Those were fantastic.

I bought a pair of these when I spotted them on sale for "only" $50. At full price I probably wouldn't have gotten them because they are a fairly radical departure from traditional footwear, at least for me. for $50 the price was mostly palatable, as this is comparable to a pair of reefs sandals that I wouldn't have thought twice of buying.

During the spring, summer, and fall months I prefer to wear thong style sandals. My feet get stinky in shoes and allowing them to get plenty of fresh air and sun really helps with that and IMO feet in sandals are happy feet. Shoes are only part of the picture when required by dress standards, weather, or terrain.

So anyway I bought them and started wearing them for around a week. in terms of comfort and toe-freedom they are much closer to sandals then they are to shoes, and the upper half ventilates quite nicely, but the toes & sole of my foot do get fairly clammy inside. It didn't take any time for my feet to adjust to wearing the five fingers even though the store & box suggested only wearing them for a few hours a day for the first week or two. Almost right from the beginning I found that having my posture changed to a more forward "toes/balls of the feet first" stance to be quite pleasant, and that while standing still it felt almost as if I were being compelled to start moving forward. These shoes were made for walking!

Where I am now:

If it's a nice sunny day and i'm walking out the door just to make some errands, flip-flops still reign supreme, I can step into them in about 2 seconds. If there has been light rain, or morning dew, or other "slightly less then bright and sunny" i'll often take the extra minute it takes to strap on the five fingers, giving me most of the freedom of sandals with a little bit of extra wetness/mud/grime protection

Sometimes I wear them just for the sake of novelty because lets face it, walking around with shoes that have individual toes is fun as hell and honestly just cracks me up sometimes.

I havent had any opportunities to get out on the trail with them yet since I purchased them, but my strategy wasn't really to use them for hiking, but to use them for walking around camp after the days hiking is over, for middle of the night bathroom breaks, and for crossing streams where I might not want to get my boots wet.

It's said that for hiking long distances your feet get dirty inside of them, but for wearing just around camp, I don't think this will be too bad of a problem. My feet would always wind up being caked black with grime from wearing sandals around camp.

I've worn them for nearly 2 years (about 99% of the time) and I like them just fine. They do smell really bad if they get wet. Other than that, a regular washing seems to keep them smelling okay to me but I don't have the strongest sense of smell.

I have a couple pairs of KSO's. Wore several holes all the way through to my foot after about 9 months. I played sports, wore them in the lake, hiking, and for everyday activities in them and they were pretty ragged after that 9 months. I sewed up the strap that broke and just wore them with the holes. The bottom of my feet got hard calluses but I didn't mind. Easier to not wear shoes outside around the house.

I bought a pair of the Flow's for winter. They worked pretty well for keeping my feet warm. But standing in one place for very long in any version of the shoe will lead to cold feet. The flow's are also tighter fitting on the feet and a little harder to get on.

As far as them being hard to get on, it does come with time. My toes don't fall into the right holes when I put them on but I've gotten really fast at getting them in there and can put my shoes on just as fast as anyone else can put their regular shoes on and tie them. I also got my first pair of KSOs so worn out that I didn't have to undo the strap, just stretched the shoe around my foot and put it on.

I've also had the Bakilas and didn't like them at all. They fit way different than the KSOs or Flows. The soul was thicker and seemed more structured. The whole shoe was thicker and stiffer and got too far away from the minimal feeling of VFF in my opinion.

The worst part of the shoe besides not being able to keep them dry in wet conditions is that when you wear them around town, everyone has something to say about them. It's gotten really annoying over 2 years. Cool at first … not cool now. Luckily, they've become so popular over the past year or so that most people have seen them now.

Chris,

You point out something very important here. Running is much different that hiking. Runners who hike, approach things a little differently. Also people like Craig and Eugene who run a lot are probably in much better physical condition than most of the rest of us (don't know if you still run).

I also started running at a young age (high school). The first two years I ran barefooted in track and XC, and even today like to run barefooted on golf courses and parks; so the approach is much different.

I think anyone who is considering minimal footwear needs to assess their physical conditioning first. If someone is overweight, it would probably be best to get to a non-overweight state before switching to minimal shoes. Shoes are not a magic elixir to overcome other high impact factors.

I have probably worked out of my home office 90% of the time for the past 3 years, and the climate allows me to wear flip flops almost exclusively on a daily basis when I leave the house, because most stores and restaurants won't let you in barefooted :)

Around the house I am always barefooted. Most weekdays I am barefooted 24/7. When I travel, I have to wear a suit and tie, and I hate dress shoes!! This may have a correlation to how my foot strikes the ground.

I've had Fivefinger Sprints for the last year and wore through the first pair and am on my second pair of those. I recently added a pair of the TrekSports when REI was having their 20% off.

The Sprints have been awesome for hiking/trail running. I don't do nearly as much distance as many people here, but have done as much as 40 miles across two days with a light pack — ~10lbs, including water — and have been okay, but I'll admit the feet were pretty sore by the end of it.

The best way I've found to keep FiveFingers smelling fresh is with dryer sheets — carry a couple for each shoe and put them in when you take them off. Totally worth it, both at home and on the trail.

On the trail, I'll usually take the extra weight of some Teva flipflops (6oz) or knock-off Crocs (10oz) to wear as camp shoes or as back up in case the FiveFingers fail in some way I can't quickly repair. Hasn't happened, but I find the weight of the casual camp shoes is totally worth it to enjoy relaxing around a fire at the end of the evening.

I've also learned from experience that stepping on one hot ember barefoot can make hiking pretty miserable. Some sort of shoes are important around a fire, and I'd feel better in a thicker sole than the FiveFingers offer for that use.

As for the Treksports, I haven't used them enough yet to give a comprehensive review. Initial experience is very good — they've got much better grip than Sprints or KSOs, and seem to fit well. It does lose groundfeel over the Sprints, but that can be a benefit when traveling over a lot of rocks or roots.

The design of the newer FiveFingers — Bikila, Komodo, Treksport, etc… — seems to have a higher fit and finish than the earlier models. I don't know if they will actually hold up longer or not, but definitely appear more refined … as they should, being 2nd or 3rd generation products.