12th May > Jet 7's

Mike > Jet 7's: The Jet 7's are Five Tens high end sport and bouldering offering. They are based on the Dragon last refined to a slipper with a single Velcro closure. The synthetic split tongue makes them nice and easy to get on and off and the stealth C4 does a good job in the traction department. Any in case you haven't been paying attention, these are Fred Nicole's weapon of choice.

I picked up a pair of the 7's in my street shoe size and found them a bit snug for my wide feet. The all 'green' rubber toe box took a bit of time to warm up and loosen to a comfortable fit however the second Velcro fore foot position did a good job relieving some of the pressure.

I initially bought these for outdoor use since they are built like tanks and basically 75% rubber but after some gym work I found they excelled on plastic, especially textured features. After a few scales up some dead verticals I found the tension and stiffness good however I preferred more horizontal applications. The traction is quite good, holding on when ample pressure was applied. It didn't take me long to gain confidence which technical foot work was required. I typically don't like my shoes tight and found that I had to take them off every 20 mins or so to regain some lost circulation, I'm hoping a few weeks of some hard sessions will break them in to a more tolerable point.

Overall the first impressions have been positive. The colour scheme is less than desirable, but that's just personal taste. Looking forward to a weekend on some real rock.