River Shoes with Laces ( Friend or Foe )

[Adrians]

Howdy all, as of late I hade need to replace my kayaking foot wear and after looking into it an wee bit notice almost all of the current trend of river shoes come with some sort of lacing system. There are loads or pros to this and all the manfacuters go on about how at home thet are in your boat or on the walk in. All great stuff so far. The two most common ones I've seen on irish rivers seem to be.

From Merrell



From Teva



Now the thing that crossed my mind was the danger for foot entrapment with laces. It was Rob Coffey who told me or a girl drowing (or near drowing can't quiet remeber) due to taking a swin and her laces getting tangled in bed rock causing her to get pulled under etc...

Now I know NRS have a tear apart function on there verson of the above shoes but I wonder if its going to help when it all goes very wrong?

So are laces of any sort safe or a potential hidden hazzard in your kayaking kit ?

Anyway Just thought I'd throw it out there adn see what folks think?


In the end I decided to go with the NRS Attack shoe, partly due the the above mention laces issue and as I'm not a wee chap space is at a premium inside my boat and i liked there semi slim line design.

[jimkennedy]

Well, the standard advice applies here: 'Never listen to anything Rob Coffey has to say...'

Apart from that, it seems more likely that if your shoe gets snagged on something, then it's going to get pulled off your foot or the lace will break. Again, Rob Coffey has direct personal experience of this, only this weekend down in Cork, and the other weekend, at the Clare Glens. You should ask him about it...

I have river shoes with buckles on them.

Jim.

[tiernan]

you're more likely to get your BA sholder straps cought or ur helmet strap than ur laces...

anyway i dont like them coz they come loose... these are savage

http://www.nrsweb.com/shop/product.asp? ... eptid=1169


they have them in RDMH for E50

[rlynch]

Salomon Techamphibians use one lace joined in the centre with a plastic clip that will release under pressure.

Ross

[tiernan]

oh ye those ones are nice too

[muirs]

I have the Teva shoes pictured above (actually those ones - those are the girls colours ) and I have absolutely no doubt that if you got snagged due to your shoelaces the shoe would just fall off... it happens very easily. Happened as I was wandering through the mud beside the Constriction on the Glens last week - shoe disappeared under inches of lovely squelchy oozy slime, meaning I then had to go digging around for quite a while to retrieve it up to my elbows in mud...
Muireann

[rlynch]

So no snagging hazard, but likely to fall off in mud. I wouldn't be buying them for Ireland…

Ross

[jimkennedy]

Jeez Muireann, you really don't have much joy with the Glens, do you?

[muirs]

You don't know the half of it Jim...