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Beast’s Tip of the Week – Bargain Elasticated Laces

By The Beast   

on September 15, 2014    No ratings yet.

Posted in Outdoor Articles, Outdoor Skills and TipsMYOG, The Beast's Tips of the Week, running, skinflint

Beast’s Tip of the Week – Bargain Elasticated Laces

If you read our review on the Nathan Lock Laces, you’ll have realised that we weren’t overly impressed by the price for what was essentially a bit of cord and a toggle. So we decided to see how easy it would be to create out own pair from spare bits we had around the Mud and Routes office and if they were as effective as the originals.

You Will Need:

  • One good length of elasticated cord, or two shorter ones (as you’ll need one for each shoe!)
  • Two toggles
  • A means to seal the shock cord ends.

Elasticated_laces-4411

We found a length of cord from one of our packs. It had arrived unattached to the pack and I was stumped as to where it was meant to actually go. Somehow, it appears that I have a collection of random toggles, though I know not from where they’ve appeared. Alternatively, you can buy the cord and toggles from Ebay or Amazon for a few quid, which will be sufficient for a number of pairs of shoes.

1 – Lace the elasticated cord into the shoe, and then cut the spare! Leave a good length spare, at least beyond the end of the laces – as shown below.

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2 – Thread the laces through the toggle, ensure that the toggle holds tight or it won’t be up to the job.

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3 – Try them for size, and trim the laces down as needed. You shouldn’t really need to loosen the laces much, if at all, in order to get the shoes on.

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4 – You could remove the lace in order to cut the second to size, or just do the above again.

5 – Trim and tidy the excess from the cut part of the laces, and you can then seal them together using duct tape, Sugru or Shoe Goo. Anything that’ll stop them from unravelling and keep them close together. A tight, tidy knot will suffice, but  we couldn’t get it tight enough. Our messy job was with some Instant Gasket we had in the kit drawer from repairing a GPS watch, don’t think it’s something we’d recommend but it does the job! The more crafty could probably sew the ends together, a much more elegant solution.

Elasticated_laces-4419

6 – The moment of truth – go for a run in them!

Whatever you’ve got spare.

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The Beast

The Beast is our Igor. The Beast sets up our pages and makes us strong coffee. On good days The Beast gives an awesome foot massage. The Beast is not to be trifled with. The Beast will moderate without moderation or discrimination; but with deliberation! You have been warned...

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