vibram five fingers news, reviews, and fan forums

Happy Birthday Birthday Shoes!

On April 17, 2010, not only did Vibram host their first barefoot running clinic in Boston (At CitySports on Boylston, home of the Vibram Five Fingers Bikila landing (reported here!) and led by Christopher McDougall and Daniel Lieberman, but it was also the one-year birthday of this website!

Over the past year, BirthdayShoes has grown tremendously thanks to the enthusiastic contributions and response of the Vibram Five Fingers fan nation! At present, the site is reaching people around the world and actively spreading the news — your feet can be shod and free! Thank you all for making this site great — it is a success because it is built on one of the best fan bases around — people who are happier and healthier (and it shows). I'm just happy to be a part of this movement.

I've noticed some changes to the site: what's going on?

That said, I've been working on trying to make this site more useful and organized. If you've noticed changes to different elements of the site, that's what I'm talking about. For that matter, I want to point out a few things:

• Email subscriptions! At present, most email subscribers are getting a full blast of every BirthdayShoes post. Going forward, let me announce that you can subscribe by email to the entire blog feed or just the news (As in, posts breaking news on new Vibram Five Fingers models). That way, if you like getting the entire BirthdayShoes feed in your inbox, you can get it. If you just want to be alerted when big news is hitting, you can get just that, too! Here are the two subscription lists:

  • Full Birthday Shoes blog feed
  • Just the Breaking News, please!

  That said, the Bikila giveaway contest will be based on the full blog feed subscribers, but that contest should end soon, and if you want just the news, go ahead and subscribe to both (and drop the extra subscription after the fact!).

• Resources! If you haven't seen it yet, check out the resources page. Goal of this page is to capture some of the site's most heavy-hitting guides, how-tos, and other information so that users can get good information quickly without a lot of angst-ridden searching!
• How to run! It's a topic of much discussion — "Okay, I got these minimalist shoes — now what? How do I run in these things?" Since I'm no expert in running, the How-to-Run section is pulling together tips on running from experts around the interwebs. This section is a work in progress, and if you think you could contribute original writings about running, please let me know!
• A rundown on the history of Vibram Five Fingers! This post attempts to start you at the beginning and take you to the present of the Vibram Five Fingers story.
• So many Vibram Five Fingers! It's hard to keep track of them all, so this page is organized to help categorize models and send anyone in the right direction if they want to learn more about a specific model. Also, for the main eight Vibram Five Fingers models, check the Vibrams cheat sheet!

As you can see, I've been busy trying to make this site more organized and useful (and there's still more to be done!). I am all ears if you have any feedback on ways to improve BirthdayShoes — simply contact me with your feedback!

Also, if you think you'd like to contribute an original article or review to the site, please let me know! Alternatively, if you have any interest in helping out with BirthdayShoes, drop me an email because I certainly could use the help!

Weekend Link Love!

Are you a member of the Armed Forces? U.S. Army? Seems some might question your desire to wear Vibram Five Fingers! Well, Contested Thesis has found the relevant Army code that governs your choice of footwear. Check it out!

Got a tear in your VFFs? Have you considered using shoe goo to patch it up? David Csonka demonstrates patching his black KSOs with shoe goo at Naturally Engineered. I've actually independently tried this technique out (though in a slightly different manner — more on this in a future post I hope!). Shoe Goo for the win!

Taryn over at Tabata This talks about losing a loved one — strap failure on her KSOs! Oh no! Fortunately she'll be getting a replacement pair, but if you're worried about your KSO nylon straps being rubbed to oblivion consider bolstering the straps with stylish tape (a mod submitted by one fan!)

How about actor Danny Glover getting arrested while wearing Vibram Five Fingers? Yep. Here is a link to an article that contains the best photo showing off his grey/palm Vibrams — he was arrested for protesting Sodexo (And not for wearing five-toed shoes!). Here are a couple tweeted photos from the event:

  

Via Barefoot Brandon, I found this radio interview with Christopher McDougall. For whatever reason, I always enjoy a good McDougall interview.

More reviews 'round the web!

A KSO Trek review over at I am to Misbehave!

Black KSOs reviewed at OliverAmes Blog!

All reviews of Vibram Five Fingers around the web are cataloged here!

Video!

Steve Magness has a great ultra-slow, high frame video of the impact of a Vibram Five Fingers Sprint on the ground:

About the Author — I founded BirthdayShoes.com in April 2009 on realizing just how much I enjoyed having "free feet" - I mostly wanted to use them for weights, sprints, and plyometrics (I'm not much of a runner!). I'm a Googler by day and minimalist footwear aficionado by night; you can find me 'round Atlanta. If you want to catch up with what I'm doing outside of the site here, follow me on twitter @bdayshoes or @justinno or check out my personal site JustinOwings.com.
Justin Owings+ has written 844 articles and 379 comments.