Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There are many uses for these, but this is for someone looking to use these for hiking. These absolutely do their job, however with much maintenance and caution: First off: don't get these if you're planning to rely on them for hiking. Why? The worst issue is that there is no cross elastic brace on that top diamond to prevent the coils from wrapping up on the sides of the boot when taking a step (especially stepping in snow where someone else has already made a footprint and your foot doesn't land exactly flat). I found that I was reaching down to adjust them every 3 to 5 minutes. The next annoying issue: as you can see from other hikers who have reviewed, they break very easily. Why? Common sense: if you walk on anything but snow and ice that has any form of possible abrasion to the elastic, well you'll break down the elastic and SNAP. This didn't happen to me, because I was very careful to walk slowly and not push off when stepping on gravel or anything possibly short. But this is kind of a silly situation since they help you speed up in the snow, but really slow down (or have to take them off) when you're in conditions that you should be going fastest. The only pro: they weigh nothing and fit in your pack easily. I can see the only use for them is a really cheap backup in your pack if you're hiking somewhere with light snow / ice, and you're worried about crossing a thin trail on a cliff where there is compact snow/ice. But, for only twice the price (not 4-5 times the price for mountaineering crampons) you could get some all metal chain mini spike crampons that might weigh a bit more, but won't slow you down, or break and leave you having to risk slipping.