The availability of Rod Lavers

[Cass]

Have you guys noticed that these are getting very difficult to find?


It looks as if Adidas is no longer producing this shoe.


I had to spend $90 just to get a pair of white/green mesh ones in my size. The Adidas website only has a few sizes available now.

I'm a little concerned by this.

Discuss.

[isirc10]

One of the footbag companies posted on their facebook page that lavers were no longer in production (I believe it was World Footbag). I bought an extra pair and some Q03s - This way I have some spare shoes I can lend/sell to new club members when they show interest in getting better.

What makes lavers and Q03s go? From my experience the sole wears down before the upper starts deteriorating, so if we resurface the shoes we should be good for quite a few years. That leaves the problem of "what do we tell the newbs to buy" when they want to play...

...and at this point, I don't have an answer. Specialized footbag shoes will always be expensive and hard to get, they just don't enjoy the economies of scale of Laver production. Lavers will still pop up on ebay for some time but will be expensive. Who knows, maybe Adidas will put out a different model to fill the hole in their line up. Don't panic yet, but it can't hurt to start eyeing up other options for the future.

[Strix]

I read a post Nick dropped a little while back that said they discontinued this model.

There are still some options on Amazon and Ebay but sizes are running low. I have been digging hard for alternatives. I have found a few decent shoes but nothing close to Lavers.

[Cass]

Nothing in that thread even compares to Rod Laver unfortunately.

I recently got the black/white ones that were available for a while but they just aren't the same as the trusty old mesh white and green/blue lavers.

Definitely going to have to resurface my first pair of lavers asap.

[Outsider]

There have long been rumors of the disappearance of Lavers...

Unfortunately, sometimes rumors turn out to be true.

I don't have any more definitive answers than anybody else here. Lavers might or might not disappear. If they disappear, they might stage a comeback shortly there-after. Or, they might not...

Just in case, I recently stocked-up on a few extra, acquired from our friends at the World Footbag Association. While I was speaking with them, we discussed the over-all situation. They have been getting their shoes right from the source for many years, and they probably sell more Lavers directly than almost any other single source. Many non-footbag players have been buying from the WFA for a long time too, just because the shoe has enjoyed a certain popularity with some other sub-cultures outside footbag, and web-searches lead them to the WFA. However, the WFA guys are also in the dark as the fate of Lavers, and even with their long-standing contacts at Addidas, they still don't have a definite answer to this question. And, their requests to said contacts at the source may very well be falling on deaf ears... Only time will tell.

In the mean-time --- Cassy, if you are really going to make it to New York City for the ECFC, I might suggest checking in with some of the bigger sporting-goods stores in NYC. Paragon Sports in mid-town Manhattan (Broadway and 18th Street) has had Lavers on their shelves in the past, and might still have some on the shelf or in the back. Paragon is NOT known for bargain prices... There are some other very large sporting-goods and shoe stores in New York City. I can't think of any by name off the top of my head, but you can check the web first and then try visiting them in person. As good as you've been getting lately, I'd be sad if anything got in the way of your progress.

[Outsider]

PS ---

From my experience the sole wears down before the upper starts deteriorating

This is usually been my experience too (except if you ride your bike ALOT in bad weather while wearing your Lavers --- the wheels and chain can kick up alot of grime onto your shoes -- yuck...) (or if you skateboard in your Lavers), (or if you practice your Swirls too aggressively [I used to wear holes in the sides of my Lavers, and once broke my pinky toe, grinding-out ripsteins and whirling-swirls and spinning-swirls...])

One strategy to protect the shoes from wearing-out too soon --- try to play more often on smooth and soft surfaces --- carpet, wooden basketball courts, rubbery running tracks... stay off the concrete and asphalt; anything rough, hard, and abrasive. Your knees may thank you for it too.

Try going old-skool from time to time --- play on the grass a little bit. Grass and top-soil don't wear-down your rubber soles too quickly.

PPS ---

"what do we tell the newbs to buy"

Well, this sort of goes hand-in-hand with another problem that has been discussed on this forum and on FaceBook recently --- is our sport/game in good shape or bad shape, and where is our next generation of players? Don't we already have another problem summarized by the question "where are all the newbs?" (I feel stoopid asking that from a member of the Penn State club, the only club with newbs...). [sarcasm]"It doesn't matter what we tell the newbs to wear if we don't really have any of them..." [/sarcasm]

[Cass]

where is our next generation of players?

I'm convinced it is the offspring of the net players. Give it a few more years


I already forked out the money to grab some new ones on ebay so I should be good for a while.

It is a troubling thought that they might not be available soon though. I feel that this could have a negative impact on the sport. Especially if whatever newbs we do have don't have access do the right equipment (or it's super expensive).

[isirc10]

Although the problem may not be apparent to the other clubs without an influx of new players, I had to tell 3 of our new guys/gals to get lavers ASAP the moment I found out they were being discontinued (they all got them btw). I am sure we will get at least one other new member this year, and at this point, I hope that they can fit in a 10.5 or 11 laver, otherwise I will have to get creative...

[Strix]

Wow I cant find a size 10.5 US Rod Laver anywhere, besides a pair of mahogany's @ amazon. Do Lavers wear pretty true to size?

[Cass]

Do Lavers wear pretty true to size?

Yes.


The mahogany ones probably aren't going to be ideal for shred.

[Strix]

Thank you Cassy. Yeah I figured they would not work good from the look of them. Sooo that means there are no 10.5's that I seen on the internet. Hehe. As the weeks go on what is available dwindles. I seen a pair of 11's but not sure if I should jump on a pair that big...

[isirc10]

I am a 10.5 now but I started with 11s and there isn't that much of a difference. Just a larger toe box and you have to lace a bit tighter.

[Strix]

Bidding on a pair of 10.5, not sure if I want them but with how hard it is to find my size I took the bait.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200967338887?ss ... 1426.l2648

[Cass]

Those look amazing, you don't see the orange too often. You definitely want them

[Strix]

Yeah and I like orange. I think from the look of them, with a little TLC I can clean them nice. Im just hoping the bid does not exceed $20-$30. I cant see paying any more than that for a used pair of sneakers.

[Air]

Wow this sounds like bad news. I panicked and ordered a pair from World Footbag just now so I'll have them in stock for future. Luckily they still had my size (9.5)

Thanks for the heads up, Cassy!

[Outsider]

A read a post on FaceBook just a day or two ago, written by a friend of mine and fantastic freestyler, who said that he called Addidas and was told that that Rod Laver -- IS -- being discontinued, but will be RE-ISSUED in early 2014... I trust my friend, but, I don't really count my chickens until they hatch, rise-up, and over-throw the oppressive regime of Old MacDonald in a bloody revolution. None-the-less, the whole thing sounds perfectly plausible to me:

Lavers might or might not disappear. If they disappear, they might stage a comeback shortly there-after. Or, they might not...

That Outsider guy is pretty clever...

At this point, I feel optimistic that Rod Laver tennis sneakers will NOT be gone permanently --- my real worry at the moment is that the re-release will be delayed by half-a-year, so that there will be a substantial period where they are mostly unavailable, and more-so I worry that the shoe will be re-designed in some unfortunate way for this re-release.

I still have bad memories of the "Rod Laver Milleniums". For those of you who may not remember, in the late 1990's, Addidas released "updated" versions of several of their "classic" shoes, thus the Rod Laver Milleniums.

Some shredders really liked the Milleniums BETTER than traditional Lavers. I think it was generally felt that they needed MORE EXTENSIVE MODIFICATION than traditional Lavers --- they mostly lacked the clipper-sweet-spot, and so we had to use SHOE-GOO to build-up that spot. I always preferred REMOVING parts of my Lavers over having to add parts to my Lavers... regardless of the pros-and-cons of the traditional Lavers vs. the Milleniums, my own biggest problem, I think, was simply transitioning to a new shoe-design --- I felt like that really set me back alot, and that is why I have never tried G-Units or Quantums or Nucleus, etc... I just don't want to have to learn to use a differently-shaped shoe, EVEN IF it was an improvement over Lavers --- for me, transitioning is too tough (I'm a slow learner).

Back in the late 1990's, I transitioned to the Milleniums under the mistaken notion that, now that Addidas has updated their old-timey shoe designs, the old-timey designs will eventually be discontinued entirely in favor of the updated designs. In fact, the opposite happened --- Rod Laver Milleniums quickly became very hard to find --- there were a couple of years where some shredders would occasionally exclaim with great delight that they were able to score some new pair of Milleniums well-after they had disappeared from store-shelves. Like I said, some shredders transitioned easily, and preffered the Milleniums over the original design. As for me, I found that it was ALMOST as tough to transition BACK to the tradition Laver design after a year in Milleniums as it had been to switch TO the Milleniums in first place, thus further cementing my resistance to trying-out any other new shoes (it was a wasted 1.5 years in my footbag career, and I don't want to waste time in that way again).

So, the Millenium series was launched, and I thought that would mean the end of the traditional series, but I had that backward. One benefit that did come from all this, though, was that, after the Rod Laver Milleniums came and went, the traditional Lavers WERE updated --- the rubber used in the sole was changed to a much LIGHTER, SOFTER, MORE FLEXIBLE AND CUSHION-IER substance --- so, the same old shape I knew and loved, but lighter and softer. Over-all, it was a big improvement. The only major draw-back was that the OLD kind of rubber-sole was much tougher --- the pre-1999 Lavers would last alot longer than the current ones. In my estimation, its a price worth paying. I still have one pair of pre-1999 Lavers with the heavier sole, and those things are bricks. Some ambitious shredders in the late 1990's used to modify the old heavy-rubber Lavers by taking a electric drills and drilling holes horizontally through the soles just to remove some material and there-by make the soles lighter and, I suppose, somewhat cushionier. Eli Piltz was the first person I knew to do that -- he always was a trend-setter.

In most respects I'd be releived to learn that Laver will in fact be back soon in the same good design we know and love. On the other hand, I can't help but think that its a bit of an opportunity lost for Quantums --- it could have been that their biggest RIVAL was disappearing, and that, for better or worse alot more of us would be using Quantums, and, leaving my own personal preferences aside, I'd say that might have been good for footbag as a whole --- if Quantums had a bigger customer base because they had no rival competing for their business, the shoes might have become a little cheaper and the company producing/distributing them might have been enriched and thus had more money to spend to promote footbag... As it is, I feel a little guilt over having given all my business to Addidas all these years when they can't be bothered to support footbag in any more direct way. [/ramble]

[C-Fan]

I love Jon's posts. Brings back so many memories... I had a pair of Lavers that I had Eli drill for me. We really are spoiled these days by how nice and lightweight the soles of our shoes are. I half wonder if the reason quad dexes weren't hit until the year 2000 has something to do with the much heavier shoes we were all using back then.

I transitioned from Lavers to g-units 8 years ago, and that was the best thing to happen to my feet and my game. Now I feel like I can't play in Lavers, but I always was comforted by the fact they were still obtainable, since I'd transition back to them if there were no other options. So for that reason I hope they keep making them.

[Cass]

Yeah, you definitely have the best posts, Jon! I love learning about all the historical stuff.

Can't wait to pick your brain this weekend!!!

Hopefully my toes stay inside my shoe for the time being..

[Faco]

The new shoe better not have the 3 stripes on the inside....that would make Jack a dull boy