pavedwave longboarding

LDPanda · Joined: 21 Nov 2008 Posts: 418 Location: Seattle, WA

I LOVE my Vans Rowleys. They were my first real distance shoe and I wore the hell out of them for over a year and well over 1,000 miles. But unfortunately, they have bit the dust. I tried putting a Rbros sole on them and it was great for a few weeks but i burned through that too. So I was left with the choice of trying to find a new pair of the same shoes or try something new. I went with something new, the Vans half cabs (actually, the perforated half cabs, which are just slightly different). Now, i really like the visual styling and light ankle support and they were certainly comfortable in the store but any time i take them out for an LDP ride, my feet hurt like crazy. I guess its just part of breaking in a new pair of shoes. I dont seem to have the same problem on my pusher setup, theyre plently comfortable for that.

Anyway, I figure shoes are as important as any other piece of a distance skater's quiver but we dont seem to talk about them much here at Pavedwave. What are some of your favorite shoes for distance skating? Any lacing tricks or insoles or anything that improved your game?

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

Way down at the bottom of the "Gear" page I posted some opinions on shoes a while back. I still follow the same mantra, basically to spend no more than $20-$25 at most for a pair of skate shoes and buy two or three pairs at a time, that typically lasts a year. The only trend that bugs the hell out of me are the FAT tongues they build into "skate" shoes!! But other than that as long as the soles last a long time and are flat, it's all good.

Over the years I've gone thinner on the soles, back to the simple Vans type of canvas shoes. Brad's pretty good at finding the $15 knock-offs!