Made a pair of screw shoes today to deal with northeast ice.
I originally made them just to not slip and kill myself in a super icy 1.3 mile walk to the local gym to use their treadmill. Screwed $2.50 worth of screws into an old pair of running shoes.
Turns out they work so well I’m going to run in them - went for a 3 mile recovery run earlier today and they were amazing!
I unfortunately got so used to how screw-shoes felt on ice that I went grocery shopping with my in-laws without the screw shoes and then almost ate it 2 times in a 10 foot stretch of driveway that wasn’t even that icy.
I can’t speak for the OP, but as a regular “screwer”… “screwball”… “screw shoer”… you want sheet metal screws. They have a hex head. (Looks like a small bolt) this is the part that sticks out and grabs the ice. And you want them as short as possible. I go 1/2" x #8 maybe… just enough to penetrate the outsole, but NOT penetrate the midsole, or your foot!
I grab a box of 50 of em for $2.00 at lowes. As you run, you may lose one screw a week (or you might not). Just replace it when you get home. Works better than yak tracks or bugz IMO. This is for road running. For trails, I just stick with trail shoes. But the OP is right. Works very well! And if they get dull, you just replace the screws and they regain their “bite”! I use a screwdriver, nothing crazy with a drill Dr install, and I’ll even drop a dot of super glue on the threads of they pop out. A go to living in the midwest! I can check exact sizes later.
Try it out!
-Yup. #8 by 1/2" sheet metal screw. You could go shorter to avoid unnecessary penetration (into your foot) . -don’t wear them into the house… -arrange the screws however you want. I go for a rim around the perimeter of the toe, maybe 3 or 4 under the midfoot area, and a rim around the heel as well. Like track spikes. -but. I avoid the middle of the heel and the ball of the foot. The midsole Co presses when you run, and you don’t want to find out how much it compresses vs your screw length 7 miles away from home! I’ve never had any issues though. -good luck!
Living in the Sierras, where the road snow packs down and sticks in the shade FOREVER - I’ve been doing these for people for years. Tips for quick and easy (if you’re a tool guy) installation, particularly for multiple pairs (1) Knock that long point off the hex head sheet metal screws with a grinder to make it a bit shorter and prevent any possibility of it working through the sole (2) Pre-drill soles for much easier insertion. Mark a small bit with Magic Marker or black tape for the exact depth of the shortened screw (3) use a drill or power driver with a matching size socket on a short extension at slow speed to drive the screws. All of this can be done just fine with a simple screw driver, but for fast and quantity work, this all helps a lot. Oh, and don’t forget to remove the shoes before taking a single step on your wife’s cherry hardwood flooring like my old buddy, the late “Speedy” McNugget did.
Those screws shoes just CONQUERED the icy/snowy sidewalks. No joke - I didn’t slip once, and the entire run was done from 7:30-8:30/mi. I got a lot of “WTF?!” looks from pedestrians barely surviving the ice as I breezed by.
At least 50% of the sidewalks I ran on looked like this, and I didn’t even worry about it, and didn’t even slow down:
And the flat-head screw tops run remarkably well on the clear pavement - no problems whatsoever running on bare pavement. But it’s more fun to run on the ice because you can!
Ice-running is the most fun thing I’ve done running in the past year!
Screwed shoes are so much better than Yax Trax. If you live somewhere cold enough to need them, your local running shop can probably put them in for you.
Screwed shoes are so much better than Yax Trax. If you live somewhere cold enough to need them, your local running shop can probably put them in for you.
I bought proper spike shoes. Amazing on ice. Can’t do pavement. Tempted to try these…
