Walking outdoors this time of year can be perilous because of slippery ice that builds up on sidewalks and parking surfaces. Take one wrong step and you may suffer broken bones, a concussion or worse.
How I have avoided such a fate over three decades of Minnesota winters is a wonder. But last winter, I took a simple step to protect myself: I started putting cleats on my shoes for extra traction.
Such cleats or ice grippers are available in a dizzying variety of slip-on designs, but have one critical feature in common: Their bottoms bristle with metal protuberances for gripping ice so you don’t go flying. You still need to be careful, but your chances of getting injured are drastically diminished.
My mom, who lives in rural New Hampshire, swears by her cleats. She has basic models for going to town, and heavy-duty versions when she treks into the woods.
But she didn’t have her cleats on two years ago during one such nature walk, and she broke her left femur after slipping on an ice patch. She had to be rescued by paramedics, and she endured a year of physical therapy.
She’s one reason I use cleats. So is my Pioneer Press colleague Bill Salisbury, who last winter took his dog for a short walk while wearing threadbare hiking shoes without cleats.
“I pivoted to turn, slipped on a patch of ice, lost my balance and fell on my right forehead, resulting in a black eye,” he told me.
That fall, and an indoor fall the same week also resulting in a black eye, caused Bill to suffer temporary brain trauma.
If that weren’t warning enough for me, I think of Tom Bielenberg, a bookshop owner who was seriously injured last winter — about the same time Salisbury was — when he slipped on ice while walking back to his car after a University of Minnesota women’s basketball game in Minneapolis.
“I consciously remember looking for black ice,” he told the Pioneer Press at the time. “I stepped off the curb and went down. I fell on my side.”
Bielenberg broke his pelvis and two ribs. Because of the injuries’ severity and how long the recovery would take, he had to permanently shutter the Micawber’s Books shop he had owned since 2003.
LOTS OF CHOICES
Last year, what happened to Salisbury and Bielenberg sent me scrambling to research cleat options. This year, I’ve been putting a number of models through their paces. There is a lot of variety, and some versions are better than others.
As I tested cleats and wrote this story, I sometimes felt a bit silly. Was I the last Minnesotan to find out about such things? But then I’d run into longtime Twin Cities residents who don’t know what they are. So I am hoping this article will save folks from a world of pain.
This is not a new product category, and lots of companies provide such cleats — often with designs that are near-identical from vendor to vendor and brand to brand. Some of the better-known brands include IceTrekkers, Stabil and Yaktrax, all owned by Implus. Other companies selling cleats include Korkers and Sure Foot, provider of Due North products via the Red River Valley of North Dakota.
Here are the models I tried out.
Yaktrax Walk. These cleats attach to shoes via stretchy polyelastomer webbing, and provide traction via a series of crisscrossing steel coils. Check the website for sizing.
Yaktrax Spikes. These stretch onto footwear in a similar fashion, but add a Velcro strap across the top of the shoes. And, instead of coils, these use seven small tungsten carbide spikes under the ball and heel of each foot for traction. Check the website for sizing.
Korkers Ultra Ice Cleat. These wrap around the front of the foot, and are adjustable in the back for use with shoes and boots of all sizes. They sport 16 steel studs on each foot for traction.
Stabil Walk. These are similar in design to the Yaktrax Spikes, but provide more robust traction with bigger metal spikes that look like tips of spears.
There are more of the spikes — 24 on each foot. Check the website for sizing.
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
After using all of these cleats a bunch, and continuing to research other options, I’ve figured out a few things.
Skip the coils? I’m not impressed with the Yaktrax Walk and other cleats that use coils for traction. I don’t think coils work very well — at least, not as well as spikes or studs do.
But don’t rule out coils entirely. My colleague Dave Orrick, an expert outdoorsman, said coiled systems are easier to wear while driving, and are not as destructive to decks and carpets — but you do want to keep them off your fancy hardwood floors.
Orrick, in fact, is a coil convert.
“I have several pairs of Yaktrax Walk and use them for everything from walking on sidewalks to hiking late-winter/early-spring trails, which often turn into undulating luge runs,” he said. “If you’re hiking a long stretch of steep inclines, the lack of toe spikes can be a downside. (But) for my money, the low-maintenance nature, simplicity, and safety of coils is worth splay-footed frog steps when scrambling up something steep.”
Get more studly. The more studs or spikes you have, typically, the better. The Korkers Ultra Ice Cleat gave me the surest grip.
Love the strap. Keeping your cleats on while tramping through ice and snow can be a problem. The Korkers and the Stabil Walk cleats tended to come off, for instance. So I like that the Yaktrax Spikes has that extra strap, also found on the Yaktrax Pro (a coil system similar to the Yaktrax Walk, which has no strap).
There’s a potentially better though pricier option: Boots or shoes that have integrated studs. A reader pointed me to Icebug, which has a broad assortment of such footwear —some with studs that retract into soles of shoes under certain circumstances so they can be used in a wider variety of conditions.
Maintain your balance! Walking in cleats may be a challenge at first because they’ll feel unfamiliar — instead of moving on smooth soles, you are perched atop bumps and ridges. So take care as you get your first miles in. Be sure to lift your feet sufficiently to avoid stumbling.
Watch your step! Cleats might make you feel invulnerable on ice, but you are not. Though you have added traction, it’s still possible to slip and fall. When walking in cleats, I act like I don’t have them on.
I’ve seen Facebook video ads for cleats that show a dude running across an ice rink. That’s insane! Don’t do that.
Dig the diamonds. In testing cleats, I seem to have erred by not including models with “diamond” in their names. This refers to metal beads that have hundreds of biting edges, are strung on steel cable, and rotate for an augmented grip.
The Wirecutter product-review site gives its top marks to the IceTrekkers Diamond Grip and the Yaktrax Diamond Grip (which seem to be identical or near-identical cleats).
I’m hoping to get my hands on these to try out. If so, I’ll update this article.
Specialized cleats. When testing cleats, I gravitated to general-purpose models for walking, typically in urban settings. But there are specialized cleats for various uses.
Runners will find a wide range of cleats suitable for workouts. Those venturing into the great outdoors for hiking or climbing have an assortment of extra-rugged options that would be overkill for city strolls.
Using ladders or doing lots of driving? Yaktrax has you covered with its Heeltrax, which do not stud up the entire bottom of the foot but only the heel.
Different strokes? “Some folks’ feet are shaped differently than others, and I have seen some pretty spirited discussions about which (cleats will) work best,” Orrick said.
Weight is a factor. Lighter users may want to gravitate towards cleats with larger, more aggressive spikes.
The bottom line. You might have to experiment with two or three sets of cleats to find the ones that work best for you. Good luck!
