The Boreal Spider's are a very well built shoe, and super comfortable. I fell in love with them instantly. The rubber is very stiff and makes edging great. The lacing system has a couple options that help suck the heel up to your foot so you don't have to do the crossover lacing thing you do with normal lace ups. The rubber is not quite as sticky as C4 but I felt very confident standing on little nubs and in tight cracks. It doesn't do much for your climbing but you'll look really cool wearin em because they don't have some gay purple or pink color on em. I highly recommend them for long multi-pitch routes or just wearing them all day. They are well worth the money not only becuase of the high performance but they are so well built that they will last through many resolings. Oh and they worked great in J-tree.