The shoe sounded too promising for me not to try - stiff yet sensitive is exactly what I need for my local crag which is a sandstone querry offering pretty hard, mostly vertical climbing with loads of smalle edges and micro-smears.
Unfortunately my money was not well spend - anyone who wants to buy the shoe at size 44,5 in Germany, let me know ;)
My take:
Interesting concept, but for me not worth the money. Shoes like Sportiva Otaki or Scarpa Vapor V deliver comparable performance at roughly half the price. The thin XS Grip2 rubber will likely not last long, so you end up paying a huge premium for a shoe that needs a resole rather quickly. Only worth recommending if you genuinely need that last bit of performance and price is no object. Note: Only climbed once with it - will update after a few more sessions. The one thing that stood out indeed: Comfy from day 1 and literally zero break-in period unlike other stiff edging shoes.
Fit:
The last is strongly asymmetric with a moderate downturn. The forefoot is narrow to medium, while the heel is a touch wider than I would have expected given Scarpa adervtises the shoe as a narrow fit (unfortunate for me!). Overall very similar fit to Drago.
I am a street size 45.5 and I usually wear Scarpa in 44. Following Scarpa's recommendation to size up by 0.5 from your usual Scarpa size, I went with 44.5, which worked well overall.
Kept it short here, let me know if you have any specific questions.
Link to full article:
https://www.climbing-gear.com/insights/scarpa-blackbird
