La Sportiva Katana Lace Review

Over a decade ago, in 2010, La Sportiva first released the Katana Lace, and to this day, it is a go-to choice for all-around performance, especially on outdoor rock. The Katana Lace tends to lean heavier to the technical face and trad climbing end of the climbing style spectrum, but it can still hold its own on overhung climbs. This versatility has made it the shoe our lead tester and many others often throw in their bag when they have no idea what to expect from the routes they're about to climb. The shoe received a slight update in 2022, but thankfully, it remains largely the same, if not a touch better than before.

Comfort

Part of what makes the Katana Lace such an agreeable shoe is its comfort straight out of the box. The upper is a lined leather that feels like a sock against your foot, and the plush padded tongue adds an extra layer of comfort. The shape of the shoe is pointy and precise, but the toe angle is flatter than some directly comparable shoes.

On our first day in the Katana Lace, it felt a bit stiff and clunky. Fortunately, these shoes broke in quickly, and the soles softened up a bit. They do stretch a little, but not by more than a half a size. Although these shoes perform at a high level, they can be worn on long multi-pitches without destroying your feet, largely thanks to their flatter toe angle. Our lead tester exclusively uses the Katana Lace to guide The Golden Staircase, a 15-pitch 5.11 in Colorado, where you want a shoe that seamlessly blends comfort and performance.

Edging

The Katana Lace comes with a full-length 4 mm Vibram XS Edge outsole, which provides a ton of underfoot support for powering down on edges. The slight downturn of the shoe also adds some support, keeping your foot locked in place. For long technical face climbs, this level of support is very welcome – you don't have to worry about fatigue while sussing out moves or stopping to fiddle with pieces of trad gear. The thick, stiff sole comes at the cost of reduced sensitivity, but the Katana Lace makes up for this with an ultra-precise toe for accurate movement on edges. We want to have these shoes on our feet for technical trad climbing areas like Eldorado Canyon in Colorado.

The Katana Lace has a flatter toe angle, which means it offers a bit less support than a shoe with a more crimped toe angle, and the lack of rigidity is noticeable when standing on the smallest edges. That said, the slight lack of rigidity is what also allows this versatile shoe to smear well. You could size down to improve edging performance, but this will decrease smearing performance. As an ideal, our lead tester likes to have this shoe in two sizes – a tight performance fit for super edgy projecting, and a half size larger for warming up or multi-pitch climbing.

Smearing

For a shoe known for its edging capabilities, the Katana Lace still smears really well. Often, these two traits are in antithesis, but somehow, this exceptional shoe manages to excel in both. The flatter angle of the toe and less aggressive downturn mean you can more comfortably flatten this shoe out to smear and gain purchase on slabs.

We prefer this shoe for smearing on long routes rather than for technical smears on gym volumes or boulders. The stiffer Edge rubber is less sticky and less sensitive for those types of highly technical moves. When it comes to long pitches on outdoor rock, though, the stiffness helps support your foot and keep it from fatiguing when you're working your way up a marathon slab.

Pulling

On gently overhung terrain or the occasional roof pull, the gentle downturn of the Katana Lace provides enough power for you to be able to pull on footholds. However, the stiff flex makes it hard to bend the shoe and grab with your toes, which doesn't make it our top choice for sustained overhung climbing. The all-around capabilities of the Katana Lace make it great for routes with varied terrain, where some pulling may be needed for a steep section, but you have to climb a slab to get there. Our lead tester has pulled the roof on #1 Super Guy at Shelf Road, CO, in his Katana Laces many times and never felt underpowered for the short horizontal section of climbing.

If you plan to make gymnastic moves on boulder problems or in the gym, the Katana Lace will feel underwhelming. There is no toe patch rubber for toe hooking, and if you need to hold on in steep terrain, the flatter shape doesn't do you many favors. For heel hooking, the shoe does well thanks to its tight-fitting heel, but it doesn't offer any standout performance.

Crack Climbing

The Katana Lace is a great option for hard crack climbing or thin cracks. It is not necessarily an all-around crack-climbing shoe, as the shape is less comfortable for wider cracks and sustained jamming. But in thin cracks, the pointed toe is great for precise jamming. This shoe strikes a good balance – it's gently downturned for toeing in on hard face holds outside the crack, but not so downturned that it is excruciating to jam with.

For sustained jamming, the Katana's rigidity keeps you from getting fatigued, but the downturn can become quite uncomfortable after a while. For multi-pitch climbs where we're climbing a variety of foothold types, the Katana is one of the first shoes we grab. If a route involves mostly pure jamming, we tend to reach for a more crack-specific shoe.

Should You Buy the La Sportiva Katana Lace?

If most of your climbing days involve outdoor rock, on technical faces and trad climbs, and you're looking for a one-shoe quiver, the La Sportiva Katana Lace should be at the top of your list. While this shoe doesn't excel at any one discipline, its versatility will serve you well on routes that demand varying climbing styles. When we're not entirely sure what kind of climbing we'll be doing on a given day, we often throw the Katana Laces into our bag, knowing we'll be covered for any situation.

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