How To Make Your Skate Shoes Last Longer
Do you keep wearing holes in your shoes within a few days? Tearing through those fresh shoes too fast?
I sure am.
Remember Shoe Goo?
If you were a skateboarding in the 90s to early 2000’s you definitely will. It was a necessity for all the young skate rats trying to make their shoes last long enough until their parents or jobs would allow them another pair.
It’s inevitable. Skateboarding means dragging your shoe, repeatedly, over sandpaper (griptape). So it’s no shock that skaters wear through shoes frustratingly quickly. Shoe Goo was a good fix, but definitely not the best. It was, as it sounds, gooey. It dried rubbery which mean’t it wore out quickly too. (And looked awful)
Want to know what I use to make my shoes last 10 times longer?
Super glue.
It dries hard, like plastic. This means it takes much longer to wear through and really helps protect all the key wear areas on your shoes.
So how do you know where to glue your skate shoes?
Simple. Either look at an old pair, or take a look at the example below. It will depend slightly on your specific habits, techniques and stance. But a general rule is the outside toe, side just past your little toe. the top of the shoe and all the outside edges of your shoe laces.
So when do you glue your shoes? Should you glue them straight out the box, or once you already have holes?
Here’s what I do.
I skate my shoes without any glue on them straight out the box, normally just for a short 1 hour skate. At this point, wear will have begun, and it’s super easy to see the exact positions that are wearing first. You’ll find on different shape shoes, these positions might change slightly.
I’ll then do a light amount of glue onto the parts showing wear, and also along the laces, toe stitching/sole seam and the outside edge of the heel near the top lace eyelet.
From then on, I just skate my shoes and when the glue starts wearing out, I’ll add more in as needed.