Tenaya Climbing Shoes

Jake Jones wrote:

Have you tried the Inti?

I haven't and am hesitant to do so because I have heard they are a more narrow version of the Ra and that would be too narrow for me. Plus I don't have anywhere local to try them on so I would be buying blind. How do they compare?

Jake Jones wrote:

I have Mundakas and I haven't had that issue.  Hopefully you just got a batch that had bad glue or something.  I also just ordered a pair of the Oasi LV.  Even the thin narrow Tenaya models still have some space in the heel and I've downsized as much as I can.  The Mundaka is the best fit yet, but hopefully a specifically designed low volume model can get me a good heel fit.

How has your experience with the Oasi LVs been? I am in the same boat with the regular Oasi and am very interested in the LVs. 

Jake Jones wrote:

Oh man I love 'em.  Nothing so far has fit my foot as well or performs as well.  The heel is lower volume so I'm more secure on pretty much everything.

Cool, thanks for the insight. That's good to hear, especially about the heel. Does the sizing run the same as other Tenaya shoes (Oasi, Mundaka, etc.)?

Jake Jones wrote:

I’m a 10.5 as a tight fit on Mundaka, Iati & Oasi LV.

Are they lower volume in the toe box as well?

One of my friends ONLY climb with shoes from Tenaya, and it seems like she absolutely loves Them!

How do Tenayas compare to Sportiva Futuras, Solutions, and Skwamas in terms of fit?

I haven't tried them myself...I guess you have to try them on to see how they fit.

I want to follow up with a 3 year lifetime review on my Teneya Tarifa shoes (the laced version of the Oasi)  - as with most people I do love the snugness and dexterity of the shoe and have owned them for about 3 years now - going into their 4th season right now. Having not re-soled these yet, the left toe is starting to blow out (small hole starting right on the toe point) but that's the main rubber wear on them. The leather however, is not as durable, the leather around the heal quickly deformed to a wrinkly smushed in texture and de-colored to a dark glue stained brown. Meanwhile the upper leather is becoming fuzzy slowly disintegrating. In addition the upper rubber on top of the toes is starting to peel off. This material degredation started in the first year of use and has been slowly progressing.

Note: I do not use these shoes in the gym they are my outside lead only shoes so they probably get used about 50-ish days a year, so cumulatively I would estimate they've seen about 200 days of outdoor climbing. Overall this is a pretty good lifetime for a shoe  and I think they will be ready for retirement by the end of this season (i.e. November 2019)... assuming the toe doesn't blow out completely before then. If I was using them in the gym and outside they probably would have been retired after year 2 or 2.5.

Despite these cosmetic issues with the leather and rubber glue, the inside of the shoe is totally fine and the performance of the shoe is also fine, I feel like they are as good now in their 4th season as they were after being broken in during their first season.

That being said I'm not going to get them re-soled because of the leather wear and damage, and I'm not going to buy these shoes again for my next pair. Yes I've been really happy with them but not enough to buy 5 pairs and keep them as my main shoe forever. I'm going to try out some other brands and shoes and might come back to these down the road. I will say that you cannot go wrong with these and I think Tenaya is a good brand of shoe that I would buy from again.

I think Scarpa and Boreal shoes are the next brands I want to try out before giving Tenaya another shot.

Hope this helps give some more insight

Cheers!  

An update from me, as well: My Mundaka's have been replaced as a favor by the Dutch importer. I still love the shoes, but the toe hook rubber is peeling a bit on the new ones as well. Still, they don't fall apart as easily as the first pair I owned. I'm torn between the incredible feel and performance of these shoes, and their poor durability! Probably will keep buying Tenayas, but wishing they made them sturdier.

RichBeBe wrote: Rich - The Tatanka is not entirely dissimilar from the Ra, but its definitely a more nuanced last shape. I'd highly recommend trying the Tarifa. Its a bit more of a "safe bet" fit wise if you can't try them on first and its really comfy. Thank you. Sadly there are no dealers anywhere within a good 8 hours from me. I have to buy online, which is always risky and requires back and forth shipping.

Hopefully the intervening three years between your post and now have brought some brick and mortar retailers closer to you! If you are still shopping online though and want to compare prices, I've just made a site that does this. Would love any feedback on the site!

https://www.footbeta.com/brand/tenaya/

Tim Leong wrote:

Hopefully the intervening three years between your post and now have brought some brick and mortar retailers closer to you! If you are still shopping online though and want to compare prices, I've just made a site that does this. Would love any feedback on the site!

https://www.footbeta.com/brand/tenaya/

I definitely like the site. You should start a separate thread for feedback.  My first impressions were

• I didn't love that the first option on many shoes was Bananafingers.  They are priced in pounds on their website and I'm not sure I trust the exchange rate. 
• Make it more obvious that there are additional pages of shoe options. At first glance I did not realize there were more. 
• Give me sorting options. Specifically by price. 
• More categories. Such as shoes under $100, agressive, trad, etc.
• Possibly include shipping in your cost calculation? 
• Possibly exclude shoes where only 1 or 2 sizes are available? Im looking at you 5.10 Dragon

Alex Whitman wrote:

I definitely like the site. You should start a separate thread for feedback.  My first impressions were

• I didn't love that the first option on many shoes was Bananafingers.  They are priced in pounds on their website and I'm not sure I trust the exchange rate. 
• Make it more obvious that there are additional pages of shoe options. At first glance I did not realize there were more. 
• Give me sorting options. Specifically by price. 
• More categories. Such as shoes under $100, agressive, trad, etc.
• Possibly include shipping in your cost calculation? 
• Possibly exclude shoes where only 1 or 2 sizes are available? Im looking at you 5.10 Dragon

Awesome Alex- thank you so much for the feedback!

Will do re separate thread. I'm a bit nervous putting it out there and am testing the waters before jumping right in, so to speak. But I will do it this week!

About Bananafingers, I'll have to confirm with them, but I think you are right that they are priced in pounds by default, and the USD price on their site is updated at least daily or more frequently based on the current exchange rate. Pretty sure they use the market rate or close to it. Depending on how you pay, I think you'd be charged a similar exchange rate (assuming the rates don't changed drastically) maybe plus some commission from your credit card company/payment provider. Something to consider though, and something I'll confirm with BF. FWIW, in my experience of buying from them, and a cursory check now, the exchange rate is similar to the market rate (Drago's are £90.83 or US$115.29, BF exchange rate = 1.269, market exchange rate (from google) = 1.27). Do you reckon the shipping cost (about $25 for non-heavy orders) or waiting time is what is prohibitive for Bananfingers compared to other US retailers?

Agree and will do re making options more obvious, adding sort, and adding more categories. I'm on to it!

Shipping I think would be super handy if you were not in the US. For those living in the US, my impression was that shipping within the US was usually nominal/free for most of these sites which are US-based... is that accurate in your experience? (I don't live in the US, but was making this site to cater for a US audience, at least to start with.)

That's a great idea- I think a 'limited sizing' tag would be super handy and can do pretty easily. A better solution for the future I think would be to have sizing AND pricing information for all the shoes... something for the future!

How does the Inti compare to the Skwama , specifically curious about stiffness.

Going on 6 months of 3x weekly use of my Mundakas in the gym, can't believe they lasted this long with the soft sticky rubber.