It’s getting into the cold and snowy season for much of the world, and that means it can be slippy when you go walking outside. If you need more traction, but your shoes don’t have spikes, fear not. You can build yourself a set of these nifty strap-on cleats designed by [Zero To Infinity].
The cleats are a 3D printed design, which [Zero To Infinity] modeled in Fusion 360 to match their own shoes. Obviously, everybody’s shoes differ, so they’ve provided simple instructions on how to design your own similar cleats to suit your personal footwear. They’re then printed in a stiff TPU to give them the right amount of flex for bending to conform to the shoe. The cleats themselves are simply M4 bolts, nuts, and washers screwed through the cleats, pointy-side down. They can then be strapped to a shoe, and you’re done!
We’d love to see a set of snow shoes that are fully printed and ready to accept cleats. Indeed, we’ve seen some neat printed sneaker designs before. They haven’t really caught on yet, but there’s nothing to stop you printing the hottest kicks of 2024 right in your own home. When you do, don’t hesitate to hit up the tipsline!
I just ran a bunch of hex head sheet metal screws in to the sole of my boots. When the ice was gone, just back them out!
Thats the way you do it with motorcycle tires!! Simple but effective, and if you use the flat/hex head screws they work even better.
I assume this is a joke? Sticking lots of screws into tyres seems like asking for a blowout…
For a pedal bike, zip ties round the tyre/rim is a safe option – using the heads of the ties as cleats.
Hello Dan, The screws are installed in the “knobs” on a knobby tire and then used to ride the bike on frozen lakes. The “knobs are tall enough to accept the screws without going into the tube or causing blowouts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeedouP86j4 It is scary driving a bike across a frozen pond but it is also alot of fun!!! AKA studding a tire. It could be done on a bicycle tire as well as long as the screws are short enough.
No way can you do that with a normal bicycle tire, it’s too flexible and thin.
And the zip-tie probably won’t do it on pure ice either, snow yes but on ice it would just slip around and be worse than having nothing I expect.
You could push a flat headed spike from the inside out though I suppose, but that would not be good for that outer tire so you would be using some cheap tire and switch it for a regular (undamaged) tire when not using it. But that’s damn laborious to do with rear tires.
Hmm, they do sell metal zip-ties, I wonder if those would be a solution.
Or how about metal tube clamps? You could even mod one of those solutions to be more spiky.
Me too. I think I first got the idea from Matt Carpenter’s screw shoe page 20 years ago: http://www.skyrunner.com/screwshoe.htm
I allways wondered if its possible to transfer the personal locomotion into a shoe sole profile.
Addidas became famous because each pair of shoes was designed personal for each athlete and sports type.
I wonder if custom made shoes makes a football player faster, or a olympic runner…
So like havier players have more teeth under the front sole for more grip….
I need those for my long way from restroom to the bar :-)
the rear strap recess is swept to the rear and then the strap is going forward. needs a little redesign there.
I think I’ll stick to my Kahtoola microspikes, easy enough to get on/off your regular boots, can be touched up and re-sharpened every Fall with a Dremel tool, and have seen me safely up and down many an ice covered mountain slope.
https://www.rei.com/b/kahtoola/c/all?s_kwcid=PS_Bing%7C401_&s_kwcid=PS_Bing%7C21700000001699351_43700078369375758%7C58700008586037632%7CNB%7C71700000115497903&msclkid=95effa71eb27194a30289ff912febb7b&gclsrc=ds
oof rounded bolts are not the way. Thats going to make it more slippery than not having them. Real ice cleats have sharp studs.
a typical example of when not to use a 3d printer tbh.. that’s flat material!
Came here to say this. It could even be a strip of old tire rubber. Doesn’t need to be stiff, in fact might work better with some flex. Come to think of it just put the screws out through the strap itself, save a lot of steps. XD
I appreciate the intention, but this is not the way. Please be careful to not slip and hurt yourself.
As someone who lives where we have snow and ice 7 months of the year here are my tips. Most important for grip is a soft rubber compound that stays soft in freezing temperatures. Avoid all plastic. Secondly grip is improved by [siping](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siping_(rubber)) the rubber. Studs are only good for smooth hard ice and they need to be sharp to dig into the ice. The compomise with studs is that they are MORE slippery on most other surfaces like snow, stone or concrete.
By the way there are add-on-soles made of rubber with spikes available commercially, as well as winter shoes with and without spikes.
Time to test various printable plastics in cold temperatures.
Surely some youtuber did it already, or didn’t they?
Seams cumbersome to me, quick grab a 3D printer, get the design, print it out, grab nuts and bolts, now carry with you everywhere (the 3D printer, so you can make on demand) or….. purchase a set of crampons from amazon and call it a day