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Comment by alt227 | Hacker News Reader

> coming undone multiple times per day (unless double knotted)

You have bad laces. I thought this too before I tried different laces. Turns out different tensions and elasticities give different strengths of knots.

For example I have some military boots which came with slightly stretchy laces. They NEVER come undone, ever. They were the first pair that switched me on to this, and since then I have always bought laces with slight stretch to them, and the knots always stay done up.

In contrast when you buy a pair of fashion trainers, the laces in them are usually terrible and come undone several times per day as you have noted.

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No, it had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the laces.

It was because I was essentially tying a granny knot instead of a reef knot and anyone who knows anything about knots would realize that of course they would keep coming undone.

And for the record, since learning how to tie the correct knot (over 10 years ago now), I’ve had no problem with laces that have come with any of the following brands of shoes:

- Nike

- New Balance

- Asics

- Converse

- Vans

Lol, the fact you are name checking trainer brands in a conversation about lace quality tells all.

A single granny knot suffices fine with decent quality laces.

The ones that come with trainers are trash.

But a standard shoelace knot is just so much better, not only can it hold for an entire day (even on, according to you, "bad" shoelaces), but its slip release makes it instant to untie at the end of the day.

Before when I used a granny knot, shoelaces were a regular nuisance for me, but since switching to a reef knot over a decade ago they have not been at all, and I have never had to buy other shoelaces either.

It confuses me that you seem to be defending the granny knot which is objectively worse in every way and you come across as wilfully stubborn to your own detriment.

> Before when I used a granny knot, shoelaces were a regular nuisance for me

I know, you must have said this 2 or 3 times, and you are calling me stubborn?!

I'm defending the granny knot because its great. Its what we teach children, and it works perfectly fine.

As you are repeating yourself I will too.

I used to struggle before I started buying proper good quality laces. Now that I do, granny knots stay strong all the time and there is no need for anything else.

I am very happy with this by the way, you do not need to convince me otherwise. I am not trying to convince you to use them, only telling you that the opinion you are spouting on granny knots is incorrect.

It appears we’ll have to agree to disagree.

I’m a big fan of the no-tie Quicklace system that Salomon use for my running and hiking shoes. Hard to go back to slow, fiddly traditional shoelaces once you’ve used quicklaces.

On the other hand, I’d probably be better at tying knots…

Do you have a brand of those laces? The original ones on my Brooks runnign shoes are usually pretty good, but overtime they start getting more loose.

Sounds like:

https://www.ironlace.com/

I mean, yes, the lace quality is important too. But strictly speaking, not tying a granny knot will improve your results regardless of choice of lace.

"On" brand running shoes have great laces for knot-holding, but they're so thin it's awkward to manipulate them to actually tie the knot in the first place.

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