Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
I bought my first pair of Miura VS’s shortly after they hit the U.S. market in 2008. For the next five years they were my go-to shoe for vertical and slightly overhanging sport terrain, playing starring roles on climbs in Rumney, Rifle, the Red River Gorge, Frankenjura, Céüse, and Rodellar. I went through five pairs of the shoes, but then, in 2012, I moved from a sport climbing mecca to a bouldering one and shifted my attention to softer shoes and smaller rocks. The 2023 re-release of the Miura VS, however, neatly coincides with a few injuries that have scuttled my bouldering capabilities and prompted a renewed dive into sport climbing. So I was excited to get my hands on them… sort of.
The thing is, after nearly 20 years as an avid consumer of climbing shoes, I, Steve Potter, have become pretty cynical about “cutting edge” new releases and “upgrades” of old classics. Though I’ll acknowledge some breakthrough exceptions, I can’t help but feel that an immoral percentage of each year’s shiniest new climbing shoes are actually worse than tried and true classics that have been on the market for years.* I feel the same way about upgrades and re-releases. I do prefer the new TC Pro over the old one; and I prefer the Skwama Vegan to its non-vegan predecessor; but I was heartbroken when one of my all-time favorite shoes, the La Sportiva Testarossa, got upgraded right out of my quiver several years ago.** And I’ve listened to more than a few of climbing’s greatest granite wizards lament about how the upgraded Scarpa Boostic is essentially useless in the technical granite terrain where the original made its name. So I was mighty skeptical when I learned that La Sportiva was upgrading the Miura VS, one of its all-time best-selling shoes.
*The bestselling La Sportiva Solution is a great example of this. It’s been around since 2007, but it’s still Jakob Shubert’s go-to shoe. It’s what he was wearing when he had possibly the most performative climbing trip of all time in December 2021, and what he was wearing when he won this year’s World Championship and secured his place for Paris 2024.
** The new version of the Testarossa lacks some hard-to-specify combination of stiff precision and soft downturn that I so loved in the original—instead feeling clunky and imprecise and sad.
So what’s changed?
Delightfully little. In addition to using more recycled materials in this new model (particularly in the padded, sock-like tongue), La Sportiva has made two structural changes.
(1) The new Miura has put a narrow strip of rubber on the back of the heel, which improves precision when heeling on smaller holds. They’ve also begun using a supple (and 100% recycled) rubber on the heel, which increases heel-hooking sensitivity and makes it feel less clunky on flat smeary features. All in all: a nice upgrade that I barely noticed.
(2) La Sportiva has moved the lowest of the three velcro straps slightly back—away from the toes—to increase the shoe’s durability. For me this is good news not because it changes the shoe’s performance (it doesn’t) but because I, the proud owner of an incompetent core, tend to drag the tops of my feet on steep walls to keep me from simply sagging off. As a result the lowest velcro strap on my old Miura VS’s tended to fray and, eventually, tear in half. I’m not picking on the Miura here. I’ve also ruined several pairs of Solutions by fraying through the closure system; and I reliably shred the laces on all my lace up shoes
But does the change work? Sort of. As a velcro shoe, the Miura VS’s structural weak point is always going to be its velcro straps. But after 15-20 days of climbing in the updated Miura VS, my lower velcro strap only shows slight signs of wear—far less than I’d have expected from the old Miura.
But does the Miura VS hold up against more modern competitors?
I tested the shoes along with my fellow digital editor, Anthony Walsh, who was a first-time Miura VS user. He put 15 days into his pair, climbing mostly in Squamish and the Bugaboos and submitting his poor shoes to a wide range of gnarly granite slabs, techy vertical faces, stem corners, finger cracks, hand cracks, and slightly overhanging dykes.
He was especially impressed with how they performed on a five-day mini-project in Murrin Park called The Masses are Asses, “a relentlessly technical, vertical 5.12 on a glassy pane of granite.” About his experience, he writes: “The pitch follows two parallel cracks, which protect with RPs and #0 Z4 cams and lean slightly to the right. The crux of Masses, to me, is the multiple technical foot placements: thin edges, tiny nubbins, rand smears, and thin foot jams. I tried the Katana Lace, TC Pro, and Miura VS on the pitch, and settled on the Miura for its combination of edging prowess (some of the edges are really small!), sensitivity on polished smears (it’s softer and more sensitive than the Katana Lace), and precision throughout the pitch thanks to its radical asymmetry.”
For me, meanwhile, sliding into the updated Miura VS was like rediscovering an old friend who, in the years since you’ve seen each other, has changed far less than you have. In a word: delightful. Putting it through a gauntlet of sport climbs, boulders, and rock types, I was unsurprised to find that while the shoe shone on smooth basalt, quartzite, sandstone, and granite, particularly when the climbing involved small divot-like smears and precision edging, it felt a bit too stiff (especially in its first few outings) on lumpier volcanic tuff, where softer shoes can better mold around the irregularly shaped footholds, and on comp boulders in the gym, where the shoe’s stiff and asymmetric downturn means that it doesn’t flatten itself around larger footholds. I felt particularly grateful for the Miura while trying one of my granite projects in Northern New Mexico. The climb involves 80 slightly-overhanging feet of Rifle-esque sidepulls and underclings, holds that feel terrible unless you push extremely hard into the small sloping edges underfoot. I’m confident that even once this review is done and my testing obligations turn to other shoes, the updated Miura VS will play a major role in my sport climbing quiver for years to come.
Performance breakdown
Edging. Combining 4mm of stiff Vibram with a highly asymmetric last that channels power into the big toe, the Miura VS is one of the most precise edging shoes we’ve ever climbed in. Walsh and I both score the Miura VS’s edging capabilities a 9 out of 10—which is to say it’s pretty phenomenal. The Miura VS is not as stiff as the Katana Lace, which has been called the best edging shoe on the market, or the Vapor Lace, which Walsh loves for multi-pitch granite edge-fests, but it is far more aggressive than either of those shoes, which makes it better suited when the terrain tilts back and you need to toe powerfully into crimps. The combination of the P3 platform and the slingshot rand help the shoe maintain its stiffness and aggressive shape over the course of its lifetime. This was one of the game-changing differences between the Miura VS and the original lace-up Miura, which tended to start stiff but steadily lose integrity over the course of its life.
Smearing. We give it a 6/10 with the caveats that (a) they’re only that good once they’re broken in, and (b) it really depends on what sort of smear we’re talking about. The shoe is pretty dang good on sloping two-pad edges or little granite divots. Big compy gym volumes? Go get yourself some comp slippers.
Jamming. It’s irresponsible to rank a shoe’s jamming capabilities without first acknowledging that this is a very crack- and shoe-size dependent category. My Muira is far too sized down to be comfortable in most cracks, since I’ve got a relatively big toe knuckle, but it does excellent work in seams and corners. If you don’t size down quite so much, the shoe’s narrow toe profile makes it a decent choice for finger cracks (.2-.4 cam sizes). On bigger cracks—hand and fist sized—the three bulky velcro straps are liable to be a problem regardless of how you size your shoe. All in all: 6/10.
Heel hooking: Heels, too, are a matter of anatomy. Some work for you; some don’t. The Miura VS’s deep heel works extremely well for both Anthony and me. Indeed, it’s the heel that separates the Miura from Scarpa’s Quantix SF, which is also an excellent edging shoe but whose heel cup feels just a bit too small for my foot. As far as technical stuff goes, the heel is pretty basic, lacking the tech wow of the Otaki’s “S Heel” or the trademark ridges for which Mad Rock is so famous. Still, it’s nicely designed and soft enough to feel sensitive and stiff enough not to scrunch off edges, so both of us rank it a 9/10
Toehooking: It’s a downturned, three-velcro shoe… which is to say that it’s terrible at toehooking and throwing too many of them is going to ruin your velcro straps. Still, the straps are far enough back on your foot that you can get away with a brief scum here or there. 2/10
Men’s vs. women’s
La Sportiva still favors a gendered terminology when describing their low and high volume versions, but the reality is that the “men’s” and “women’s” versions of the shoes are essentially designed for climbers looking for different levels of stiffness in their shoes. The men’s version uses 4mm of relatively stiff Vibram XS Edge rubber. The women’s version uses 4mm of the softer, stickier Vibram XS Grip2. Lighter climbers will probably prefer the women’s version, since they need less supportive shoes to feel supported by them, and they may find the stiffer version less sensitive. But heavier climbers may opt for the women’s version when attempting climbs where smearing or toeing into edges is the name of the game.
Comfort & sizing
When it comes to sizing, the Miura VS is in-line with the rest of La Sportiva’s performance line. And the shoe is surprisingly comfortable given their moderate downturn and high asymmetry. The shoe does need a break-in period, but thanks to its suede leather upper it can stretch from uncomfortable to roomy after just a few sessions, so I definitely recommend downsizing at least one size from your street shoe.
Walsh went down two sizes from his street shoe—from a 42 to a 40—and found them “a great fit for me on long and technical granite pitches.” I’m a glutton for punishment, so I went down 3.5 sizes—from a 42 to a 38.5—and they were (as expected) a bit painful at first, certainly not an out-of-the-box-onto-the-project sort of shoe. But after a few sessions they fit exactly like I remembered.