20-Boot System Shoe!

For years I’ve had a closet-full of boots and shoes

for my various outdoor activities. When I go on a long, diverse

road-trip, I usually need a dufflebag just for footwear.

But it occurs to me that nearly all parts of all the footwear

I use are redundant, similar, interchangeable. I’ve seen a few boot

systems take advantage of this fact over the years, but none have

gone as far as they reasonably could. There is also the fact that

many sportsmen are generalists, that I’m not at all alone with

my closet full of footwear and its attendant hassles.

I’ve worked up sketches and diagrams for a system of shoes

and boots which would create 16 commonly used sports footwear

yet could be carried in a small briefcase. Parts could be easily

replaced as they wore out.

All that’s needed to configure 20 sets of sports footwear is:

1 light top, 1 heavy top, 1 rigid base, 3 skate frames,

14 misc soles and pieces.

My starting notion is that the soles would attach to uppers by

way of velcro covering each surface plus a rugged ziplock zipper

running around the circumference.

One could save money and space and get better fit and

durability with such a system. The concept could be

shifted to the custom side of things, emphasizing a perfect

fit on the two basic platforms that all the shoes are built on.

The prototyper of such a system could worry themselves

strictly with the attaching system (and possibly also the

custom last) then flesh out the rest from existing shoe

subcontractors, those parts being somewhat generic.

Here’s a list of footwear I see being readily included in such a system:

sandal, runner, light hiker, heavy hiker, climbing, tennis, b-ball,

trainer, soccer, road bike, tour bike, mtbike, xc ski classic, xc ski

skate, tele, alpine, speed skate, hockey skate, inline speed skate,

inline hockey skate

COOL!