5.10 Dragons Views

General Goods

I finally got my hands on a pair of the “new” 5.10 Dragons last month and they blew my mind. I have pretty much always been a 5.10 addict and I have had basically all of their “high performance” shoes: Anasazi Velcro, Lace-ups, the regrettable Mesas, V10 (old and new) and others. After years of tinkering with the original Velcro Dragons and the 2 different versions of the V10’s, 5.10 really crushed it with these new shoes. The Lace-up Dragons perform spectacularly both with and without the laces tied! I was surprised to feel how powerfully my foot was positioned simply by putting it in the shoe and leaving the laces undone (tying laces increases my pump). The one common complaint that I was able to confirm was that the laces are really ridiculously long and you will have to come up with a comfortable system for lacing them (or just don’t lace them if it’s too much work).

These shoes are very aggressive--downturned, asymmetrical toe, tight tight tight. I8've heard 5.10s are great for durability--so far they seem tough. The rubber is amazing, sticks to everything.For sizing, I went down a half size from my 12 street shoe. At first I tried a 10.5, but they were just too ridiculous. The 11.5s I have now are still tight and painful, and Ic'm still fighting through the blisters, but it will be worth it once they fully conform to my feet. They have already started to do so a bit. I have a friend who wears an 11.5 street shoe and wears 9 dragons, but I think hey's crazy. I would suggest going with a half size below your street shoe if you have a relatively normal or narrow width foot. Try them on if you can--but remember these shoes arene shoes aren<'t for walking around in, they are meant for climbing steep, technical faces.

Alright so here's how I see it, You wear street shoe 10.5, I would go with Dragons 10.5, because I hear that they fit very snug. Not because of their aggressive nature but because 5.10 has not yet figured out that they should make it easy on people who order shoes who have never tried them on before and are ordering over the web or something like that. In other words an 11.5 Anasazi verde should fit somewhat very similar to a 11.5 Dragon, this is what gets me the most about some climbing shoe company's. Sometimes I get the size that I think will fit me and it's better off being fitted to a golf club. I have called 5.10 when I ordered my Anasazi verde's and they said it is a snug shoe and going half size smaller than street shoe would be just about perfect. They were right. Go ahead and give them a call and they will probably give you some good advice. Too many times people buy climbing shoes that are too tight thinking that's how a climb shoe should fit.