Companion forum thread to:

Water Weight Gain and Drying Characteristics of Lightweight Hiking Shoes after Submersion

A suggested addendum to the article: What is the absorbtion and drying rates of the shoe versus the insole?

I'm not sure how many people this applies to, but I usually replace the stock insole with Superfeet to aid in my aging knee problems. Since a LOT of insoles use large amounts of foam, I can see this making a huge difference in the test results.

BTW: great article -- it will surely help guide my next shoe purchase (I just got back from a very soggy trip).

(edited to correct typo -- why, or why can't I spell right the furst time ;-)

Edited by davidw on 06/02/2006 16:29:39 MDT.

I was looking at Roclite 315, which like the F-lite's are new for 2006. Now I'm wondering if they have the same H20 absorbtion problems as the F-lites (or whether their uppers are more similar to the Flyroc/Terrocs). Anyone knows?

a few months ago i was thinking about this subject. my boots were soaked and it was humid outside. i devised a rather interesting approach to speeding up the drying time.

once in camp, i removed the liners, changed socks, and then put on my boots with plastic bags covering my fresh socks.

the boots have a gore-tex layer with a protective liner that was soaked. the bags prevented the moisture from wicking into my socks and the heat from my feet reduced the drying time.

in the morning, the inside of my boots were damp, but after donning the bags while getting breakfast and camp cleaned up, they were dry to the touch.

dry feet are essential to me - and this clever idea seemed to work quite well with boots that were water logged.

-steve

Steven -
Good idea!

Peter,
Here's what my inov-8 contact says,
"The Roclite 315 utilizes a similar mesh upper as the F-Lite 300. Water
absorbtion/retention will be similar. If they are looking for a shoe
that drains well, I would suggest the Flyroc 310. The loose mesh upper
allows for better water drainage."
I would add that the terroc dried faster than the flyroc in my tests.

To be more precise - the drying rates of the flyroc and terroc were the same, but the flyroc picked up a bit more water initially than the terroc so it carried more water weight than the terroc after 2 hours of hiking.

I just started doing this and compairing shoe to shoe. Thanks for the article boss. I was thinking of some things with this article.

I know wearing two models gave a more rapid test, but was wondering perspiration from your feet would cause a dry shoe to weigh more in such circumstances.

I wonder if the charts would show the same slope for the different shoes if, instead of ounces of water weight lost, the percentage decrease of water weight gained was graphed

This would be great if done in the east where, as Colonel Photon has said, if things get wet they stay wet. That Colonel is a fine and brilliant gentleman.

It would be nice to see just how much if any weight gain there is to socks worn during a hike