Trickers, Sanders, Sebago and Loake shoes make some superb goodyear welted leather soled shoes and boots, but they can be fairly expensive when it comes to repairing them by a reputable cobbler. A great solution, to which I’m an ardent fan, is to get some stick-on soles attached. This shouldn’t really be done until the soles have had a good bit of wear, by which time the soles will have been roughened up sufficiently to allow the glue to bond really well between rubber and leather. Done properly stick-on soles will give you plenty of traction and avoid those embarrassing slides on slippery floors. But crucially they will wear far better than the very tightest grained leather soles and when they do require replacement will cost a fraction of what it would have cost to re-sole the shoes.
Now shoe manufacturers have traditionally questioned the merits of stick-on soles in the belief that the extra traction of the rubber can put undue pressure on the welt stitching. However they have clearly now come around to my way of thinking as most of them now offer a range of traditionally goodyear welted leather soles with a rubber insert let into the sole leather. The purpose is of course to allow extra wear and traction.
You may wonder whether your foot can still breather sufficiently if an impermeable rubber sole is attached to the bottom of your shoe! In fact a stick-on rubber sole covers just 50% of the sole so there is still plenty of exposed breathable sole leather, off the ground. However for a foot to breathe properly it is actually far more important that your foot sits on a thick, all leather, insole which runs the full length of the shoe. So long as this is in situ then your feet will breathe comfortably even if the entire outer sole is rubber, as is the case with the hugely popular Dainite rubber sole. Rest assured that all the Sanders, Trickers and Loake shoes which we offer at bradshawandlloyd.com have a full leather insole.
