Kahtoola MICROspikes Review: Tire Chains for Your Feet

Kahtoola MICROspikes are a shoe traction device designed to increase traction on icy and snowy surfaces. They are made of hardened stainless steel spikes attached to a flexible rubber harness by short chains. The harness is designed to fit over various shoe types, including hiking boots, trail running shoes, and casual shoes. They’re essentially tire chains for your feet.

RELATED: 10 Best Traction Devices for Winter Hiking

MICROspikes are a popular choice for hikers, runners, and other outdoor enthusiasts who want to stay safe and active in winter conditions. They are also a good option for people living in areas with icy sidewalks and roads.

MICROspikes are not as aggressive as crampons, which are another type of traction device that is used for mountaineering and other technical climbing activities. Crampons have longer, sharper spikes that are designed to bite into hard ice and snow. MICROspikes, on the other hand, are designed for use on less technical terrain, such as hiking trails and city streets.

MICROspikes were first invented in 1999 by a company called Kahtoola. At the time, they revolutionized winter hiking by eliminating the need to buy mountaineering boots and full crampons. This opened up winter hiking to a huge audience because you could use MICROspikes with all kinds of footwear and without any special training or techniques. Since then, they have become one of the most popular winter traction devices on the market. If you’re new to winter hiking, they’re one of the first pieces of winter gear I recommend you buy.

MICROspike Design

There are three parts of every MICROspike: the harness, the steel “spikes”, and chains that attach the two. The harness is a flexible, stretchy plastic harness with a well-marked front and rear. There are twelve spikes in all, secured to plates that hang below the soles of your footwear and dig into ice or packed snow when you walk. The chains and spikes are quite robust so you can walk on rock, ice, paved roads, or packed snow without wearing them down quickly or breaking them. While the steel spikes will wear down eventually, it takes a long long time and many hundreds of miles for that to happen.

Sold in pairs, they can be worn on either foot interchangeably. There are several different sizes that correspond to your shoe size, so make sure you choose the right one, so they won’t feel too tight or be too loose and fall off. To put them on, you simply pull them over your existing footwear. There are no tools or adjustments required.

After heavy use, it is possible to break one of the chain links. But repairing the break with a jeweler’s wire is equally easy. You can also tear the chain off the harness if you pull really hard, even though they’re attached to reinforced holds. Again, they’re easy to repair with zip ties. It’s almost a badge of honor amongst hikers to wear a pair that has been repaired because it takes so much hiking to wear out a pair of MICROspikes.

Competitive Winter Traction Aids

Since being introduced, many companies have copied the original MICROspike design, but made the versions with much less durable metal, especially those sold on Amazon, that have microscopic cracks in the metal they use or have a less robust plastic harness. While less expensive, you get what you pay for, since these copies wear out much more quickly. The same holds for much lighter-weight winter traction aids like Yaktrax Walkers, which quickly fall apart if you want on anything less urban than a sidewalk.

There are some high-quality MICROspike competitors, though, most notably Hillsound Trail Crampons Ultra, which are virtually identical to MICROspikes but have velcro safety strap that loops over your shoes to prevent you from losing  them if they pop off. Many hikers use these two product interchangeably, dpending on what’s in stock or on sale.

Recommendation

Kahtoola MICROspikes are an excellent option for anyone who wants to stay safe and active in winter conditions. Unlike mountaineering crampons, they’re compatible with all forms of hiking shoes, including insulated winter boots, hiking boots and mids, trail shoes, and trail runners. Many hikers wear them on snow-packed or icy trails all day long and they’re a market-proven innovation that transformed winter hiking and made it accessible to all.