Review of the Vibram Five Fingers KSO and the Bikila (Updated 2018)

RATING: Poor

Vibram Five Finger KSO Evo (Black)

The KSO “Keep Stuff Out” Evolution have a sole thickness of 4.7 mm and are described as the VFF all rounder, good for road running, trail and gym work. Using the VFF measuring chart I found the KSO to be true to size and a snug fit, like a glove in fact, with plenty of stretch in the material, and speed laces to tighten up the shoes if needed. There is a small amount of support in the design, not much, but not like being truly barefoot. The sole is thin enough to be able to flex and curl your toes, but thick enough to protect from stones although you can still feel the stones pushing through. So even though there is a level of protection running is still a tentative process, experimenting to find a sweet spot between running on the toes and on the mid-foot. It is like running barefoot with protection and you are certainly not going to heel strike with them! The thinner sole does promote a more barefoot running style, and I found I ran with a lighter foot fall in these than the Bikila.

Vibram Five Fingers Bikila Evo (Blue and Yellow)

The Bikila are more substantial with a sole of 8.5 mm and feel much more trainer-like, indeed the difference of the 4mm is noticeable on the road, and provides increased mid-foot cushioning. The fit seemed more constrictive than the KSO but I think this was due to the stiffer material of the sole. There are also speed laces which makes getting the correct fit a doddle. Again they are true to size and fit like a glove. Oddly there is a more pronounced cutaway around the ankle making it feel like your heel might even pop out, and there is a cushioned heel cap which should be redundant on a shoe for mid foot strike. 

Out on the road the increased cushioning is immediately evident. The sole is generally more substantial in midfoot and heel and whilst you can still flex your toes you can’t curl them, or splay them as you can in the thinner soles.

I soon adapted a good mid-foot strike with these shoes and noticed a more confident running style. I also found myself running faster than in the KSO, probably because I wasn’t so concerned on how my feet were landing. The Bikila certainly do not give a barefoot experience but the thicker soles were warmer on an icy pavement! However I did find myself heel striking now and then without really noticing which was a little perturbing. 

Conclusion (UPDATED 2016)

I have now been running in both models for over 12 months (along with some Skora Form for more rocky trail runs). The Bikila's did get more use and the KSO neglected. However what I have noticed is that as my feet have become more used to the barefoot running that I like the KSO a lot better than I did. The reason for this is the flexibility of the sole and the increase in ground feel and the improved running style - it becomes almost addictive when your body has made that transition to barefoot running (More endorphins?).

The Bikila is the more trainer-like VFF which was designed to help runners transition to barefoot running, and this I think is very true. There is just the right amount of cushioning vs ground feel. However this cushioning becomes less and less required as you transition and in fact I like them less and less...for me the KSO is the perfect VFF.

Wear and Tear of The VFF Bikila
This is the problem with these VFF's. Their design is not "economical" in any sense of the word. It is what I call a design luxury - the effort to produce a foot shaped shoe with toes is outweighed by the actual performance, That is why we find no similar or equivalent designs in history or the archaeological record nor in contemporary indigenous populations. Vibram Five Fingers, although they look the part, are not the best barefoot or minimalist shoe by any means. The toes, whilst allowing some spread of the toes (actually hindered by the rubber sole) are impractical as they catch mud, twigs, and grass in between them. When it is wet, they leak water in through the toe webbing. (you can find waterproof Bikila but they are expensive). Finally I have come to the conclusion that shoes are shoe-shaped for a reason - because it is the most efficient design. The sole of the shoe is a platform, and when you cut into that platform to make toe segments you are not really gaining anything from the arrangement other than creating a design problem. For a more indepth rationale of why VFF's are not great please read the below:

Design Fault
The problem with the Bikila is that although there are five toes the thickness of the soles means you cannot splay your toes. Well...you can splay your toes but it is the fabric that moves rather than the soles. Hence on my Bikila the fabric is parting from the sole on the big toe and the small toe.

This is where the VFF will ultimately start to break apart hastened by mud, sand and other debris. A traditional shaped shoe would not have this sort of problem

Surgery on the Vibram Five Fingers Bikila
To alleviate this problem I have taken the extreme measure of taking a scalpel to my Bikila's,  thinning the rubber sole at the hinge of the big and little toe and to thin out a wedge on the side to make the splaying movement of the toes possible in unison with the sole rather than just the fabric being splayed out around the toe. I also made lacerations across the shoes so that there is more bend in the sole. I have also had to stitch the sole back onto the upper on the big toe and into the toe webbing.

KSO
These are my favourite of the two, I love them, however they suffer from the same problem, the sole is peeling off the big toe which will require some stitching. Let me point out that the soles themselves are not worn on either the Bikila or the KSO the weak link is how they are glued onto the fabric upper.

REPAIR!!

Glue...

When the sole starts to part company with the uppers you have little choice but to glue and stitch, and the result aint perfect unless you are professional cobbler. Personally, given the price of the Vibram Five Fingers, it is disappointing having to continually repair them to get them to work as they should.

...and stitch

Will I be buying a new pair? Sorry, I love the Vibrams, the look and the feel, but probably not. They look good, they scream "I am a barefoot runner" but they just aint what I call value for money. Having said that I did take my KSO on holiday and they flatten down to next to nothing in the suitcase, and I have started to wear the Bikila as my casual shoe, and the Bikila does make a comfortable casual shoe, great for walking, even driving the car it feels good. But there are so many minimalist shoes on the market these days to chose from; I guess it is a matter of both styling and function and price that will decide if I buy another pair of VFF.

My go-to-shoe at the moment is the all leather Skora Form, and I intend to buy a pair of Vivobarefoot shoes at some point in the not too distant future.



REVIEW 2018 - Revisiting the VFF's!
Three years on, what do I think of the VFF's?

Design: Poor

Quality: Good

Fit for the purpose I bought them (barefoot running): Excellent

Resilience: Poor. 

Do I still wear them NO! (Poor).

Overall rating: Poor

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Those who read and loved Born to Run probably all went out and bought (or at least thought about buying) the VFF's and, you know, I was happy with them for the first six months, but they soon started to fall to pieces, or develop holes in the material between the toes. I haven't put the VFF's on in a year, infact, I last used the KSO when I went surfing, and let me tell you, the KSO are no good in the water and no good for surfing. Why did I think they would be? I dont know...it was random...however I do believe Vibram do make FF's for watersports. But in anycase, its a big fat NO from me. When I see people wearing the VFF's I just give them a wry smile and shake my head. They aint all that.



Barefoot Inspiration and Review of the Vibram Five Fingers

I forgot to say that the book Born to Run was a big inspiration to me as was the book Chi Running. Chi Running focuses on correct running form, Born to Run focuses on, well, everything else. Whilst Chi Runnng is a sort of technical running guide, Born to Run is the archetypal un-put-down-able page turner. What what quickly focused my attention in Born to Run in particular was the passage on page 40 about Carlos Castaneda. In the past I was very much into Castaneda as an undergraduate student, reading and researching his work in hopes to explore that tribal art work and textile designs of native peoples were some sort of vision from Non-Ordinary Reality. The idea got me as far as the start of an M.A. but I took it no further. One of the reasons was that I realised that Casteneda was a total fraud. But the interest, however counter-intuitive to my academic sensibilities remained, and although Casteneda is a very dubious figure both as an anthropologist and as a new age guru, I found it intriguing that the author Craig McDougall had stated that the Indian Nagual or shaman that mentored Castaneda, the Yaqui Indian Juan Matus, was not a Yaqui Indian at all but a Tarahumara (Raramuri), the supposed tribe of Super-athletes that can run 100 miles for fun in sandals (and blouses and skirts) and who are the subject of the book. This re-ignited my interest in Shamanism in general and the full potential of barefoot running and made me feel compelled to one day re-read Castaneda's compendious oeuvre. 

With Born to Run McDougall, a journalist, with that Journalist's gift of writing short concise paragraphs and page turning chapters suddenly made running, and barefoot running, and running  fifty miles cool, as cool as surfing with a new sort of philosophy and a cool but weird (and ultimately tragic) proponent in the eccentric late Caballo Blanco, a sort of long distance running Don Juan for the 21st century. It is damn alluring, long distance running in sandals and so is the book and highly recommended.

Of course running properly and injury free is damn difficult and the book romanticizes just about everything the author talks about, but that (I suppose) is what a good book is and what a good writer does. Nevertheless it (the book that is) was ( and still is) the main impetus (and inspiration) behind the whole  barefoot running thing which has been about for nearly ten years and me, well, I have just latched on to the back end of the fad. (There is a film coming out called Run Free which will further this cresting wave of barefootedness)

Review of Vibram Five Fingers KSO (2015).
The Vibrams are out of the box and on my feet! According to the accompanying literature you are supposed to not even run in the five fingers for the first two weeks but strengthen your feet by walking barefoot. I was going to leave four weeks before gradually phasing in the "barefoot" running with the Vibrams, but something happened with those Puma Mobiums. First of all, I should point out that I bought the Mobiums mid 2013 and used them for about six months before I went through a bout of illness and stopped running for a year. Even then the Mobiums were uncomfortable particularly in the arch, as if some one was poking something up into the arch of the foot and after a couple of miles I found my feet started to go numb. Fast-forward a year and I find that the Mobiums are still giving the same pain and numb feet, to the point that when I finish a run the discomfort is such that I cant wait to take my shoes off. I also started to get that shin splints feeling along with a pain in my left ankle. Having had (in the past) gait analysis and a string of expensive running shoes I decided rather than to seek "professional" advice (which I have learnt to distrust) to instead listen to my own intuition. It is for this reason that half way into week 3 I threw caution to the wind and took the Vibram Five Fingers (VFF) out for a spin. It was very icy and cold and with snow on the ground, and I had to calculate a run which was ten percent of my usual route which was stipulated in the literature (Vibrams have been successfully sued in America for misleading claims.)

Finding a route short enough was difficult so I just ran around the block. Immediately I found the pain in my left ankle start to ease along with the shin splints feeling and I felt none of the foot arch pain associated with the Mobiums. This was interesting because the Mobiums are neutral runners with minimum cushioning and the VFF are basically gloves with a bit of rubber on the bottom. It was not logical. I remember the last time I had an injury (in 2011) I packed extra insoles into my Brooks to make them more cushioned (and they were pretty well cushioned to start with) only to find it made it worse and here, by taking the cushioning away the pain actually went. Go figure. Actually go read Born to Run and you find out that one runs far more carefully barefoot than shod, not only that the stride is shorter with fore front strike and the muscles and the rolling of pronation acts as a spring - as a sort of bio-mechanical suspension.  Leonardo da Vinci said that the foot was a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art and if you look at his study of the bones of the foot you can see its inherent intricacies. It is a dynamic multi-flexible arching platform and  a very sophisticated piece of kit which we have squashed into shoes for centuries....and maybe the foot doesn't want to be locked into a shoe!!!