This is the 2nd of a 2 part series where I review my Vibram Five Fingers Shoes I bought last month. You can read the first part of the review here.
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In my last review, I touched on a bunch of the things I really like about my VFFs. In this second part of the review, I’m touching on some of the things I wasn’t so happy with. Once again, for those of you wanting to skip around, here are some of the highlights of the video:
- [-0:17] – Pronounciations
- [-0:45] – My weird feet
- [-2:07] – My attempts at biking
- [-3:50] – Mammoth blisters
- [-4:45] – Final Thoughts
[BIT] VFF Review Part 2 from Joel Runyon on Vimeo.
As always, here’s the text version for those of you looking to read rather than watch the video
Things I Disliked About The Vibrams Five Fingers:
Table of Contents
Me Being An Idiot
All last video I talked about all the things I liked about my Vibrams. Unfortunately, I’m an idiot and pronounced it Vibe-rams the entire time, thus revealing how much I actually do know about them. From now on, I will attempt to make less of a fool of myself and pronounce them in the correct manner – Vee-brums. Please accept my apology :).
Weird Toes
If my Vibrams made me realize something, it’s that I have really jacked up feet. Feed are weird looking to begin with but I realized when I started wearing my VFFs that my last three toes on each foot actually angle and underlap each other. This means my pinky toe pushes under my fourth toe which in turn pushes under my middle toe [I’d include a photo to show you exactly what I mean but lots of people think feet are disgusting and I don’t really want you to lose your lunch].
Besides being a very odd condition that I never knew I had before, this made it really, really, difficult to get my feet in into the shoe at first. When I first got them, it would literally take me 15 minutes to massage my toes and get them into the shoe as they’re supposed to be. The first few weeks were like this and a massive pain. Thankfully after some time, the process has become much, much easier and I think the VFFs are actually teaching my toes to straighten out!
Biking
Once I learned how to put on my VFFs without the assistance of a SWAT team, they really started to grow on me. I wore them for running and walking and I even swam several laps in them. Then my mind got to thinking:
Hey, you can run in these, you can swim in these, you gotta be able to bike in these! Heck, you could do a whole triathlon in these! Why not try and do a simple spinning class in them. It can’t be that hard, right?
Wrong
As much as I enjoyed wearing VFFs for running, they sucked for biking. I’m not a pro cyclist (I just film them across country), but to cycle effectively you need a solid surface on your feet to push and power through on the bike peddle. VFFs and your bare feet don’t provide that. Not only was I not peddling very fast while wearing my Vibrams, but it was downright painful. I’ll admit it, I don’t always looking forward to spinning class, but I was ready to walk out 5 minutes into that class. It was terrible. I don’t know if my feet are just a way too soft or if my peddles had nails in pointing up piercing my foot. All I know is that biking in VFFs sucked. A lot. Don’t do it.
Mammoth Blisters
In the first week of running with my Vibrams I got a MAMMOTH blister on my heel. I went from the bottom of my heel up the side of it [Once again, I voted against the picture in favor of having you not throw up]. After this, I quickly realized that I should stop heel striking and changed my running form so I’m landing much more on the balls of my feet which fixed the problem and the mammoth blister. However, now I have another blister on the big toe of my foot. Thankfully, it’s much smaller and as my feet continue to toughen up, I’m sure they’ll get less severe.
The Verdict
Vibrams Five Fingers KSOs are a whole new way to approach running. They’re great for running and competing in various outdoor activities. If you live in someplace where you’re doing different adventure sports (running, swimming, surfing, hiking, climbing, etc) they’re an awesome choice that allows you to do all those activities at once. If you’re looking to do a lot of biking with this shoe. Don’t do it! It’s painful and downright sucks. There I said it. Now you better not do that.
The downsides of the shoe are pretty minimal. The blisters will go away when your feet toughen up, the awkwardness of putting them on will fade when your feet get used to the shoe and your shoe gets used to your feet. I’ve heard some people say that $85 is a lot for a pair of shoes, but I really disagree. You can pay a lot more for a pair of running shoes and with the KSOs being so versatile and usable in such a variety of scenarios, you might as well buy a pair if you’re in the market for new shoes.
Bottom Line: If you’re looking to get a new pair of shoes that are insanely versatile and don’t mind an initial amount of discomfort and adjustment, you should seriously consider getting yourself a pair of Vibram Five Finger KSOs.
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What’s your least favorite thing about Vibrams/Barefoot Running?
Also, have you had a good experience biking in your VFF? If so, what am I doing wrong?
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Disclaimer: This post contains NO affiliate links. I don’t make money off anything I review here on [BIT]. You can see my two-sentence disclaimer here.
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I have a friend here in Japan who has been using these shoes recently. Unfortunately he has a couple of webbed toes. I think all is well now, but at first they were terribly painful.
Oh and they look stupid
Chris,
Your friend might want to check out this solution for VFFs runners w/ webbed toes.
http://birthdayshoes.com/fivefingers-for-webbed-toes-how-about-vibram-four-fingers-mod
Also, they might look dumb but just imagine all the hiking, swimming, and running around japan you could do in them without swapping shoes!
Hey Joel,
Thanks for the review; I’m looking at purchasing a pair of these to replace some of my other shoes. It just feels right to me that your feet should interact with the ground as they were designed to–without the layers of padding and extra support that let you throw your legs and body out of whack.
It’s good to know about some of the drawbacks, too. I’ve read another review that talked about the smell that tends to develop in Vibrams that can be hard to wash out… Do you have any experience with that?
Thanks, and I’ll be tuning into your blog from here on out!
Haidn
Haidn,
Thanks for checking out BIT. I appreciate it!
Hopefully the review helped clear up some of the pros & cons of the VFFs.
There’s a lot to be said about running as we were designed to run instead of the way we’ve been trained to run. Tim Ferris (4 hour work week) has great review about this on his site. You can check that out here – http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/05/07/vibram-five-fingers-shoes/
As for the smell, I was going to include that but I forgot. There is definitely a smell that you get from wearing them barefoot. I think it’s pretty much unavoidable anytime you don’t wear socks. I’ve washed them and the smell goes away for a bit, but after reading an article on Lifehacker about freezing the smell away, I think I’m going to try that next. http://lifehacker.com/5562291/throw-smelly-shoes-in-the-freezer-to-freshen-them
I’ll let you know what my experience is. Thanks again for checking out BIT!
-Joel
Yes, I love my Vibrams! I have the Classic ones but see most ppl have the KSOs (versatility factor). I actually met a few new friends who were also wearing Vibrams while running 5Ks recently! Blisters are a side effect but like you said, they go away after your feet toughen up. Training in martial arts for years have helped my feet already endure the wear and tear of running “barefoot.” Plus, I love being different, and running to my own beat. If I get more stares and the question “What ARE those things on your feet?!”, the better! ha!
I like the KSOs a lot, but i’ve noticed they’re terribly hard to get on in a pinch (for a triathlon lets say).
I like the fact that my feet are toughening up. I definitely get a lot of stares, but that’s what makes it fun!
I made the mistake of getting mine 1 cm too short. (They were BLACK, not purple!)
Also, the rubber on the pinky toe kind of hurts!
Other than that–they worked fine for me biking 12 miles? I know that’s not nearly “enough” but, *shrug* that’s all I did. 🙂
I think my pedals hated me :). Also, it was on an indoor bike so that could have made it worse.
it probably was the indoor bike those seem to have big metal spiky pedals i got mine and once i got used to biking using the ball of my foot i had no issues at all i still bike around in these
I did it on a few different bikes, but I found it hard to get a lot of power out of the VFFs because there wasn’t wasn’t any platfom for your foot to push against the pedal with.
Late to the party, I know but I had to comment. I can soooooo relate to your point about spinning! I wore my Vibrams (Vee-Brums?) to a spin class earlier this week and I won’t be doing that again in a hurry. I do wear mine for regular cycling though. Other than the spinning thing, I can’t think of another negative about my “shoes”. I LOVE them!
I know people who’ve biked in them, but I’ve only had bad experiences. I might give it another shot….maybe. 🙂