![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It seems that this year I am on a shoe overhaul/restoration kick. I borrowed black shoe polish from S, and polished my black Born clogs. They really needed the attention. Then I bought tan shoe polish, and polished my brown Born clogs. They also looked much better after polishing. I still need to polish the tan pointy-toed faux boots that I hardly ever wear.
I was hoping to turn in my hiking boots for new soles today, but it turns out that the shoe repair place in Troy isn't open on Saturdays. I am not sure on what weekday I'll make it over there, but I'd really like to keep my hiking boots going if I possibly can. I've had them since sixth grade, after all. My confidence in the hiking boot restoration potential increased after I succeeded in getting my Chacos re-soled. I think maybe all the boots need is for someone who knows what they're doing to go in and scrape out the old glue, and apply new glue. I don't think they will even need new soles. We'll see.
This morning, I retrieved the footstretchers out of my boat, because after bringing some replacement rowing shoes with me to the boathouse, it dawned on me that it was more likely than not that it would not be a simple replacement process.
I was right. Although it wasn't a simple process, it actually wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, because my boat is a Ron Owen single, and Ron Owen believed in building rowing shells for the everyman. He also had a background in building sailboats, so he was able to apply a lot of fabrication principles to the construction of rowing shells. One of the fabrication principles is to build things out of straightforward materials, so they are relatively easy to work with and repair.
The underside of the footstretchers looks thus:
I took a side view photo as a reference for myself, but maybe it's fun to look at in general:
The shoes are bolted in place towards the top, so that the heels can come up when a rower is at the catch, and the rower can then apply power through the balls of their feet on the drive.
I wanted to be sure that I installed the replacement shoes at the same heel height as the original shoes, as heel height can have a large impact on leverage while rowing.
Shoe undersides:
The replacement shoe comes with four bolt holes. This configuration is designed to interface with one of a range of different plates that are often referred to as "phenolic plates," and is as close to universal as any equipment in rowing. The short bolts pass through the plate. The plate is then installed onto the footboard (aka footstretcher), and can typically be repositioned upwards or downwards to raise or lower heel heights.
This system is all well and good, but has its issues. For one thing, over time, the short bolts holding the shoes tend to work loose from their bolt holes, or strip out the bolt holes, and then suddenly the rower is doing ballet moves instead of rowing. For another thing, the plate-footboard interface creates a series of additional attachment/strain points that can work loose or snap, and more often than not, they have very tedious and annoying loosening and tightening mechanisms.
Instead of that system, the previous shoes were installed via pairs of flat-headed bolts passing through washers, extending all the way through the footboard. It looks like they may have come with a different configuration of bolt holes (or are those for cleats or something? Are these old shoes even meant for rowing?), but then had the bolts added in an aftermarket fashion. So on the new shoes, I peeled back the insoles, drilled new holes to match the holes in the footboards, and reused the previous fastening hardware.
I thought the wear pattern left on the foot plate by the previous shoes was interesting (and I might want to re-treat the footboard at some point):
Testing the newly installed shoes, as best one can without the boat:
And, finished, with a quick-release strap:
Messy workspace:
It's nice to finally have the shoes updated. Part of the reason for finally tackling the project is that one of the heel safety ties finally gave out at the last regatta, and so in order to race I had to MacGyver a new heel tie. The heel ties are a safety requirement so if a rower flips, they should be able to free their feet without needing to reach down with a hand. They basically tether the heel of the shoe to the bottom of the footboard. The new heel ties are now a different design that is simpler to maintain and replace compared to the old ones.
-
In other news, we biked up to the farmer's market today, and picked up some fun things, like strawberries and rhubarb to turn into cobbler. Once we finished our supply shopping, S got a latte and we ate some pastries while sitting on a curb in the shade.
Apparently, while we were sitting there, something kept sparkling at S from inside the sewer grate nearby. At least, that was his explanation after the fact. All I knew was that at a certain point, he stood up and tested to see if he could lift the cover off by himself. Then he lay on the ground, reached his arm in, and fished something out.
In case you can't tell, that's a poop emoji keychain.
I was hoping to turn in my hiking boots for new soles today, but it turns out that the shoe repair place in Troy isn't open on Saturdays. I am not sure on what weekday I'll make it over there, but I'd really like to keep my hiking boots going if I possibly can. I've had them since sixth grade, after all. My confidence in the hiking boot restoration potential increased after I succeeded in getting my Chacos re-soled. I think maybe all the boots need is for someone who knows what they're doing to go in and scrape out the old glue, and apply new glue. I don't think they will even need new soles. We'll see.
This morning, I retrieved the footstretchers out of my boat, because after bringing some replacement rowing shoes with me to the boathouse, it dawned on me that it was more likely than not that it would not be a simple replacement process.
I was right. Although it wasn't a simple process, it actually wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, because my boat is a Ron Owen single, and Ron Owen believed in building rowing shells for the everyman. He also had a background in building sailboats, so he was able to apply a lot of fabrication principles to the construction of rowing shells. One of the fabrication principles is to build things out of straightforward materials, so they are relatively easy to work with and repair.
The underside of the footstretchers looks thus:
I took a side view photo as a reference for myself, but maybe it's fun to look at in general:
The shoes are bolted in place towards the top, so that the heels can come up when a rower is at the catch, and the rower can then apply power through the balls of their feet on the drive.
I wanted to be sure that I installed the replacement shoes at the same heel height as the original shoes, as heel height can have a large impact on leverage while rowing.
Shoe undersides:
The replacement shoe comes with four bolt holes. This configuration is designed to interface with one of a range of different plates that are often referred to as "phenolic plates," and is as close to universal as any equipment in rowing. The short bolts pass through the plate. The plate is then installed onto the footboard (aka footstretcher), and can typically be repositioned upwards or downwards to raise or lower heel heights.
This system is all well and good, but has its issues. For one thing, over time, the short bolts holding the shoes tend to work loose from their bolt holes, or strip out the bolt holes, and then suddenly the rower is doing ballet moves instead of rowing. For another thing, the plate-footboard interface creates a series of additional attachment/strain points that can work loose or snap, and more often than not, they have very tedious and annoying loosening and tightening mechanisms.
Instead of that system, the previous shoes were installed via pairs of flat-headed bolts passing through washers, extending all the way through the footboard. It looks like they may have come with a different configuration of bolt holes (or are those for cleats or something? Are these old shoes even meant for rowing?), but then had the bolts added in an aftermarket fashion. So on the new shoes, I peeled back the insoles, drilled new holes to match the holes in the footboards, and reused the previous fastening hardware.
I thought the wear pattern left on the foot plate by the previous shoes was interesting (and I might want to re-treat the footboard at some point):
Testing the newly installed shoes, as best one can without the boat:
And, finished, with a quick-release strap:
Messy workspace:
It's nice to finally have the shoes updated. Part of the reason for finally tackling the project is that one of the heel safety ties finally gave out at the last regatta, and so in order to race I had to MacGyver a new heel tie. The heel ties are a safety requirement so if a rower flips, they should be able to free their feet without needing to reach down with a hand. They basically tether the heel of the shoe to the bottom of the footboard. The new heel ties are now a different design that is simpler to maintain and replace compared to the old ones.
-
In other news, we biked up to the farmer's market today, and picked up some fun things, like strawberries and rhubarb to turn into cobbler. Once we finished our supply shopping, S got a latte and we ate some pastries while sitting on a curb in the shade.
Apparently, while we were sitting there, something kept sparkling at S from inside the sewer grate nearby. At least, that was his explanation after the fact. All I knew was that at a certain point, he stood up and tested to see if he could lift the cover off by himself. Then he lay on the ground, reached his arm in, and fished something out.
In case you can't tell, that's a poop emoji keychain.
