I've tried DKL and I prefer the way it grips to normal grip tape. I also like how you get consistent flicks since the material on your shoes are staying in a more consistent state. I ultimately went back to regular grip tape because of the following issues:
The bottoms of my shoes were still wearing out after about 4-5 months, so the grip tape only extended their life by about a month. This may not be the case in most shoes but I wear Splay shoes so the bottom is pretty thin.
I skate usually at least 12 hours a week up to maybe 16 and the grip tape would get flat spots after 2-3 weeks which still seemed pretty grippy but the bigger issue is that the corners would peel up, particularly in areas where I shuffle my feet when setting up for tricks. You can see in the pictures here:
I followed all the instructions for leaving an inlay and that sort of thing. It always happened the most in the same spots on my tail where my toes are and on the side where the middle of my foot is often shuffling around when setting up my front foot.
I tried glueing down the peeled up parts, i tried replacing the grip in just those areas with left over rubber grip tape scraps that I saved, but it would always peel up in that spot again very quickly unless I just replaced the entire grip tape. That's what I did for a while and I would always have to replace the grip at about the 3-4 week mark when the peeling was too much and my flicks would start slipping on the bare wood.
So with the rubber grip tape i would have to replace it at least 5 times over the course of one pair of shoes, vs just using a single sheet of regular grip tape and having to replace my shoes after 3 months. The cost savings wasn't there. And I also started just gluing extra suede onto the Splay shoes and now they're making a suede version as well so there isn't as much need for rubber grip.
IF the peeling issue didn't happen i would probably still use it because like i said i actually find the grippiness preferable and I like not thinking about like oh i just added a bunch of shoe goo to my shoe so now it's gonna grip a certain way or my shoe is really worn down so now it's gripping another way or now the sidewall of my shoe is barely there so my flick is different etc. I like the consistency of your shoe being the same. But it's just too annoying to replace the grip tape that much or have it peel up really bad in the middle of a session and have to call it quits early.
I emailed them a couple times about it and i probably didn't do a good job explaining the issue and they basically just sent me the application tutorial again and didn't have any solutions. But there's some issue with the adhesive on the bottom that doesn't adhere to the deck like normal grip tape.
Topic: Non abrasive grip tape (Read 520 times)