Preston Forsythe said:
Buy a pair of Bata Boots. Indestructible toes.
Regular Bata boots without the steel toe do have very good toes and indeed
last a long time, especially in water where other types of boots tend to fall
apart quickly (think Honey Creek). However I would not get Bata boots, or any
others for that matter, with steel toes. You do not need a steel toe for
caving, it makes the boots heavier, and most importantly, the hard steel toe
causes the outside toe material of the boot to wear much more quickly. I think
this is because the steel toe cap prevents the toe of the boot from flexing the
way it otherwise would, so the toe gets abraded much more rapidly when dragged
over rock surfaces. If a hole develops in the outer shoe material above a
steel toe you can try to fill it with Shoe Goo or the like, but in my
experience this never works for long. Eventually the toe hole will grow so big
that the steel cap falls out, and then the boots are shot.
Mark Minton
