Two-Heel Drive

Back in January I posted some advice about how to get your soggy shoes dry again. Since then it’s been an enduring fave of wet-footed googlers. Yesterday this comment showed up on the post:

I have an innovative product that will effectively dry wet shoes and boots. They’re called Stuffitts. They are 100% cedar-filled sachets that you simply stick in your shoes/boots when you’re not wearing them, and the product removes moisture and eliminates odor. I’m a triathlete and have only been selling this product for a few months– having attended race expos and placing a few ads (see Triathlete mag). Great response thus far. Give them a shot. www.stuffitts.com.

Normally I delete such posts without a thought, but on a lark I checked out the link. Turns out it’s this guy named Mark Huebner making these shoe inserts on his own as a solo start-up, so I figured “what the heck, another for the ’boutique manufacturer’ list” so I let it stand. This morning, Mike realized his transgression against the Blogger Code (which is: no spamming your commercial interests in a community-of-interest site) and sent me a note of apology so I could remove the post. I thought that was cool enough to leave the post in place.

Mike also asked if I’d be interested in testing his product, but I declined, because I’m not really all that interested in filling my site up with gear posts (which would make Two-Heel Drive commercially viable and I simply can’t have that). I did recommended he contact the folks at backpackgeartest.org, though.

If you’d like to test ‘em out, however, drop me a line and I’ll put you in contact with Mike.

UPDATE: No dice with these over long distances, which might be why they aren’t on the market anymore. The air pocket in the forefoot is very cushiony, but the constant repetitive up-and-down motion of long walks causes friction at the edges of the pocket. My feet started blister a bit after about six or seven miles on a hard-packed trail. These are fine for walking around the mall for a few hours or a job like nursing or cash-register attending where you’d spend a lot of time standing without much motion. But they aren’t hiking shoes.

Not to be confused with Run DMC, the Walk DMX Max, which I picked up at the Reebok outlet store in Gilroy the other day, has an extremely spongy insole and air pockets under the ball of the feet and the heel to provide super squishy walking.

I’ve put about five miles on them so far — on flat ground — and they did fine. Kept my feet dry despite a light rain.

I’m pretty sure this model has been discontinued, actually, but it’ll be interesting to see how long they last before the little air-bubble inserts pop and go flat.

Lately I’ve discovered I’ve got short, fat feet, and that I had been buying shoes over a full size too long to get them to fit comfortably around the toes. I’ve also discovered I can spend hours in a shoe store looking for the best fit, once I make up my mind. Once I started trying on shorter shoes in wider widths (harder to find but worth the effort), I noticed the fit improving dramatically.

I don’t know if these new shoes have enough traction for hiking but it’ll be interesting finding out (in the same way that it’s interesting to discover your car tires have gone bald when you’re veering off the side of a curvy mountain road).

I’ve got the orange Superfeet insoles for a couple pairs of hiking shoes whose fit is less than ideal. They seem to improve comfort a smidgen, though not as much as a better-fitting pair of shoes would, I suspect.

I’m curious how other people’s feet react. Most stock shoe insoles do mold to the shape of your feet, within limits. One pair of shoes beats up the balls of my feet; insoles just make them a bit less annoying (I hiked 20 miles with a 20-pound pack on these things last year and my tootsies were not pleased).

Custom orthotic inserts presumably cure a lot of these foot-comfort issues. Mind you they cost more than most pairs of shoes, but if you like to take long walks, it’s probably worth the investment.

If you’re all about the insoles, please share with the class. I still can’t make up my mind whether I’m getting my money’s worth (though it occurs to me if you have to ask, you probably aren’t).