Two Toes Up for Resoling

I currently own 4 pairs of climbing shoes. My first pair was the 5.10 Coyote, which were retired within my first 6 months of climbing after I tried the Scarpa Helix.  I wore my first pair of Scarpa's for a couple of weeks until I realized that they were too small for me -- I lost a couple of toenails enduring their tightness & telling myself "they're suppose to hurt".  But, I liked the fit and comfort so much, that I bought another pair one 1/2 size larger & fell madly in love with them.  I wore these until they started to get noticeably more sensitive in the toe box area with some peeling action starting to occur.  At this point, I bought another pair of the same size & started to break those in.  However, I've never enjoyed breaking in new shoes & decided to research getting my beloved pair resoled.  That's when I found Rock & Resole on the internet.  Tons of great reviews can't be wrong, so I packed up my shoes & sent them on a spa vacation to Colorado.

It took a few days longer than anticipated, but I finally opened the mailbox on a Monday afternoon to find my shoes inside... Joy!  They were pretty stinky when I first took them out of their plastic mailing pouch... they smelled like high strength glue capable of killing brain cells.  I quickly got over the smell once I tried them on & recognized their personally molded comfort, along with a surprisingly sticky outsole that grabbed the lint off of my living room carpet with a vengeance.  They actually felt "better than new".  Seriously, the rubber that they used to replace my worn out Scarpa rubber was actually of better quality (turns out they used La Sportiva XS Edge).  I lead several routes at the gym that night with them & had complete confidence in their ability to stay put on the holds.

Even though the process costs about 1/2 of what a whole new pair of shoes would cost (at full price), I think that I will do it again when one of my pairs wears through again.  I didn't experience a stretching of the shoe upper, which I've heard many complain of, so the great fit didn't change for me.  La Sportiva probably makes a better climbing shoe (or at least an outsole), but my feet like the last shape of the Scarpa better.  So, my "newest" shoes have the best of both worlds for me: broken-in Scarpa upper with a La Sportiva outsole.  Ahh... now I need to wear down the outsoles on my other Scarpas to have them resoled with La Sportiva rubber.  Climbing diva?  Someone has to be.