Cleats

07Oct10

My current pair of cleats (that I use for football and ultimate frisbee) recently broke. Like clockwork, after about a year, my cleats break. The last 3 years I’ve been trying new brands each time; Under Armour (the worst), Reebok, and Adidas.  My cleats break on the edges where the outsole is connected to the rest of the shoe; usually it splits apart on the outside edge of my left foot, and the inside edge of my right foot (I guess I cut harder or more often in one direction). When this happens, I revert to an old old pair of soccer cleats I have until my new ones ship. Wearing these old cleats shows me how significant a difference cleats can make.

The shoes I buy now are football cleats with circular/dot cleats. My old soccer shoes have oval shaped cleats. Turns out the shape of the cleats make a HUGE difference for cutting. With oval shaped cleats, it’s much harder to get the traction necessary to stop and change directions. So if you’re buying cleats for cutting sports such as football or frisbee, keep in mind to get the circular/dot cleats!

EDIT: Also, I always get molded cleats instead of detachable because they are lighter (no metal screw-in base), you get more cleats for traction (detachable usually only has 7 cleats per shoe), and the shoes break before the cleats wear down enough that you’d want to detach/change them anyway. They are nice if you actually care to change the length (if you play on different surfaces) though.

Filed under: Informational, Personal   |  2 Comments