[The CyberPoet]

cyber, i was told not to wear steel toed boots as the steel is easily bent back onto your toes. this is also common practice not to wear steel toes at OPG where i worked last summer. instead they wear rock fiber. a mix between a concrete and plastic. protects just as good/better and will not cut off your toes.

Good point... although I suspect that not all steel-toed boots are the same caliber of steel. I had an industrial accident at 17 working in a factory that smashed the rear edge of the steel toe down onto my foot quite hard (but I shutter to think what it would have been like without the steel toe); the boots I wear now can take substancially more than that, as I dropped the same damn electro-magnet (still have a couple left over from there) on them by accident and they didn't move at all.

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[WildKat]

When I went down way back in the day on my rebel, I had redwing steeltoes on..when the front tire blew, and I layed it down I couldnt quite kick the bike out far enough and it landed on my foot, and the steel toes/red winds in general held up great, no denting or smashing of the steel... although I suspect like CP mentioned, it could depend alot on the quality of steel.

[paperairplane]

It's like that OR game - pick one:

steel toe being bent into the foot OR severed toes

I wear Alpinestar race boots or combat boots when I ride. My Alpinestars have a very hard rubber coating on the heel area and CF to protect the shins.

I have a wide foot and find most EU boots to be a bit small and narrow, in general, but every manufacturer is different.

Any dedicated race style riding boot will be much much better than most shoes. Plus, you will have less missed shifts as the boot is more solid than a shoe.

[furitive_revolution]

the steel gauging would play a big role. i was just taught not to wear steel toes but hey, if you have good quality steel toe boots you should be good right? as said before, the chance of crushed toes is better than no toes

[harrye]

...this is also common practice not to wear steel toes at OPG where i worked last summer. instead they wear rock fiber. a mix between a concrete and plastic. protects just as good/better and will not cut off your toes.

I am trying to guess what OPG is. I am thinking Ontario Provincial something, but could be way off. I am thinking that if a person works in a stamping mill or among very heavy industrial equipment, the switch to rock fiber makes sense. But if statistics (and lawsuits) show that toe amputations just aren't happening with steel toed cycle boots, then steel would seem to be fine for cyclists. Especially if rock fiber cycle boots aren't marketed.

[harrye]

...A higher price will get you steel toes, ankle protection, possibly steel heal gaurd and possibly steel plating in the soles. A much higher price will get you something that also limits the rotation of the ankle and foot to keep it from getting bent the wrong way during an off...

I remember watching Motorsport Mundial last summer on the Speed Channel where they featured a TT road race in Ireland (I think). One rider lost control of his bike under heavy braking on a bumpy road surface when approaching a sharp corner. A shower of sparks came from the bottom of his boots (toe and heel) on two or three occasions when he put his foot down to help him recover balance on the bike. This all happened in probably less than 2 seconds. He was able to save it.

I am thinking that part of the purpose of steel toes/heels on cycle boots is for just that purpose. You could put your foot down on the pavement at speed in an attempt to avoid actually droping the bike. Not that I'd want to try doing that with a 450 pound Kat. But who knows? Maybe only a little support is needed to prevent going down.

Right now I've got the new helmet and armored jacket, and footwear is my next concern. I am wearing low cut tennis shoes now, and my future MSF instructor said high-top tennis shoes would be the mimimum footwear allowed for the class. He said its to avoid burn on the unprotected ankle. I am glad to learn that ankle coverage also helps to keep the shoe on your foot after the first impact.

But that rubber sole of the tennis shoe is going to grab that pavement a lot harder than steel wouldn't it? It might break your foot or leg bones, or cause you to start tumbling on the pavement, rather than hopefully sliding flat on your back to a smoother stop. I know that on public roads with other traffic, sliding may not be good since you don't know what you will slid into. I guess I am invisioning a situation where one drops their bike on their own accord, rather than hitting or being hit by another vehicle.

I know flat trackers used to drive with a foot down and the back wheel skidding, so is some support for the foot on the pavement arguement.

So I am asking Cyber or anyone else, is there a danger to having rubber soled tennis shoes that will grab the pavement? Is there an advantage to having steel toes, and heels especially, in being able to slide the foot on the pavement? What do modern riding boots, like the nitro mentioned above, have as a sole? Is it hard leather which won't grab as much as rubber?

The one disadvantage that I can imagine with hard leather or steel is if you suddenly need to put your foot down for stability at a slow speed coming to a stop or doing a slow u-turn and its wet, your foot may slid and you drop the bike. A rubber soled tennis shoe might do better in this situation.

Lastly, about the fear of having toes cut off by steel. I don't think motorcyclist face that problem. A lot of things happen when a rider goes down, but having the entire weight of the bike fall directly on his toes is not one of them. He's got all kinds of body parts to worry about. Feet, lower legs, knees, hips, arms, chest, head, etc. The toes wouldn't seem to be particularly vulnerable in a high speed bike dismount. Vulnerable due to the first and subsequent impacts, of course, and all the sliding and scraping of the pavement, but not like having a thousand pounds of weight dropped on them. Not like when a heavy object in a factory or construction site falls straight down on your toe from up above.

Harry

[ThAzKat]

You could check out newenough.com to see what they have on clearance. That is what I did when i bought mine.

WHen you get boots it is a different feeling as I have found out (locked the rear twice) Also if you buy something in european sizes i have found them to be a little tight until you wear them for a while and the leather stretches out some. Now they are more comfortable.

yeah Z, did you get that whole boot and brake thing figured out yet?

Ahhh haaaa haaaa haaaa <slapping knee> Ahhh hahaaaa haaa, you are just asking for it aren't you Matt, ROFLMAO

[The CyberPoet]

I remember watching Motorsport Mundial last summer on the Speed Channel where they featured a TT road race in Ireland (I think). One rider lost control of his bike under heavy braking on a bumpy road surface when approaching a sharp corner. A shower of sparks came from the bottom of his boots (toe and heel) on two or three occasions when he put his foot down to help him recover balance on the bike. This all happened in probably less than 2 seconds. He was able to save it.

Lest I be misunderstood in what I was saying, let me clarify some things:
If you see sparks, these are from the titanium sliders on the front/side of the toe and one the outside of the heal of his boots, not from steel plating on the underside. The sliders the pro's wear are either hard plastic, carbon-fiber or ceramic (sometimes with insets, such as titanium threads which will spark wildly).

The steel foot-plates for street and track riders (when the design uses them) are layered inbetween layers of the sole of the boot and do not extend to the outside surface; they are there to prevent punctures and lateral forces from penetrating the shoe. The only exception is dirt-track racers where the bottom of the shoe is flat metal, because they are constantly foot-down through the turns (and would wear through something weaker, and/or build-up heat too quickly).

Note that the better quality boots will also use a high-tack oil-resisting sole formulation designed to grip on low-friction (ice, etc) and oily road surfaces, just like superior quality combat boots... The best may also use a fire-resistant high-tack formulation (something equivilent to a Wesco #100F sole).

So I am asking Cyber or anyone else, is there a danger to having rubber soled tennis shoes that will grab the pavement? Is there an advantage to having steel toes, and heels especially, in being able to slide the foot on the pavement? What do modern riding boots, like the nitro mentioned above, have as a sole? Is it hard leather which won't grab as much as rubber?

There is an advantage in anything that makes your footing more sure-footed when you are standing. As I said before, the steel doesn't contact the ground, but acts as a layering shield for your feet when it's actively used in the design.

These days manmade synthetic rubber-plastic compound materials are standard as the outside (bottom) surface of the sole. Leather isn't a good boot-sole material for motorcycling because it wears quickly, absorbs oil (causing it to lose traction later) and can absorb water once heavily scuffed. Oddly enough, the biggest single researcher on sole technology is the US Army's combat equipment development lab, since it has so much riding (or more correctly, walking) on it's combat boot soles.

KNOW THIS: Shoes that squeek on smooth floors almost always contain a high percentage of natural rubber.

The one disadvantage that I can imagine with hard leather or steel is if you suddenly need to put your foot down for stability at a slow speed coming to a stop or doing a slow u-turn and its wet, your foot may slid and you drop the bike. A rubber soled tennis shoe might do better in this situation.

See above.

Lastly, about the fear of having toes cut off by steel. I don't think motorcyclist face that problem. A lot of things happen when a rider goes down, but having the entire weight of the bike fall directly on his toes is not one of them...

It depends a lot on the type of bike -- it is very common for riders of cruisers and heavy touring bikes to have one of their feet pinned under the engine castings on a low-side accident (imagine loss of rear wheel traction and it sliding out sideways during a braking maneuver). The design of the Kat helps attenuate this possibility (large fairing protrusions help keep the bike off the foot), but it is still possible. It's not so much an issue of the "weight of the bike" coming to rest on the foot as one of the falling mass being concentrated at the foot at a moment of impact because the foot is a higher surface than the ground underneath it.

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet