With the second snowy winter in a row in prospect, thoughts, perhaps, should turn to the art of walking gracefully on treacherous streets, rather than the crab-like stumble that many of us have had to adopt recently.
Hiking boots help, of course, but even they can find it difficult to cut into impacted ice. However a few simple and surprisingly good-value shoe-chains from Rud – a company that spends most of its time making tyre-chains for vehicles coping with Arctic temperatures – are worth investigating.
They come in several forms that slip easily on to shoes, but all are made of vulcanized rubber linked securely to a case-hardened cadmium-plated steel link chain that cuts easily into snow and ice, leaving the walker to concentrate on journey’s end and not the journey.
The manufacturer claims that the chains, which are priced from £10/€12 to £18/€21 and easily available on the internet, will work on any slick surface, oil, mud, slippery rocks, and wet grass, and not just snow and ice.
