Imelda Marcos? Moi? Non!

As the great lady probably did not say "you can never have too many shoes"

Tidying up today I find that I have 1 pair of standard shoes and 8 pairs of orienteering shoes, including 6 VJ's:

My VJs - from oldest to newest: bottom left to bottom right and then top left to top right

Strange that the uppers on the older shoes are barely worn - and ZERO holes whilst the the last orange pair went "fuzzy" after ~5 races and then shortly after began to perforate.  I only bought these because the ones on the top left got holes after a year of use.  I have not run in the green ones yet.  Also my feet seem to be getting smaller - from a 10.5, through 10 to 9.5 in the latest pair.

Three generations of VJ "Dobb" soles - oldest on the left, newest on the right

In the good old days it was the sole, not the uppers, that went first - either the Dobb-spikes working loose or a stud breaking off on a rock.  Perhaps the shoes were "lasting too long" - or was it a response the lighter shoes from competitors?  I suppose the environment in Scandinavia is rather different from brambly-midlands-grot.

Interesting to see the changes over the years:

1. Cross/Triangular Studs to Concave Pentagons to Concave Quadrilaterals/Rhomboids
2. Addition of "teeth" in the instep/outstep (perhaps for contouring grip) replaced with a single dobb and some small studs
3. Two of the heel dobbs move from the middle to the front studs and then are joined by two more dobbs back on the middle studs.
4. An extra dobb at the front (in the middle - caused me pain as it was right on a joint) and then two more front dobbs.
5. Addition of two bands of mini studs/ridges - not at all sure what these would add in terms of grip - if the ground was so soft that they made contact it is probably almost liquid mud.
6. The "toe" goes more pointy and the grip bars become broader and then the toe curls upwards and gets mini-studs instead of bars.

I wonder how scientific all this redesign has been?  Hopefully not marketing or visual appeal led.

What sort of compromises have been made?

grip on sand v grip on wet mud v grip on leaf litter
grip v binding in sticky mud/clay v self cleaning
grip v flex v protection v support
and so on...