A laced dress or sport shoe that tightens and ”ties” its own shoe string would be pretty fantastic. Well it’s now a reality, soon seen on shoe store shelves. The secret is the routing of the shoe lace ends on either side, in channels between the liner and outer shoe material, down and back (think Adidas stripe) to the inside of the heel of the sole. There, they are wound on two tiny winches geared to a small piston that can protrude from the bottom of the heel.
With most of the weight on the ball of the foot, one can press down the heel piston two or three times to ratchet tighten the lace. A dial on the back side of the heel is then twisted to lock the laces and retract the piston. Besides positions for tightening and locking the laces, the dial has a third position to release lace tension to easily remove or don the shoe.
The result is a better looking shoe that eliminates bending to tie bows that can loosen or snag.-- FarmerJohn, Apr 13 2004 Self-tying shoe laces http://aristophanes...qeaspprodID1192.asp [skinflaps, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Ahhh...the piston or air bag in the shoe-step, always enjoyed the step down-initiate.Just hope the dial dosn't go faulty...undo-do up, undo-do up..<repeat|>. +-- skinflaps, Apr 13 2004 Puma had its disc technology that died years back, but you had to bend and twist that. Croiss.-- dooper, Apr 13 2004 You have to bend down with these anyway to turn the dial that locks the piston. Seems like a complex expensive way of achieving what Puma did more simply and cheaply.-- spacemoggy, Apr 13 2004 While standing, grab something with one hand. Bend the opposite leg at the knee. Reach back and twist the dial. Expense is seldom a problem here.-- FarmerJohn, Apr 13 2004 Not bad, I can cross that one off my list. +-- sartep, Apr 13 2004 [FJ]: If expense is seldom a problem, why not just hire a professional shoe tier to walk around and tend your laces?-- Cedar Park, Apr 14 2004 ... and then a tier for the tier and a tier for the tier's tier and ...-- FarmerJohn, Apr 14 2004 It'll all end in tiers, as po would say.-- DrCurry, Apr 14 2004 random, halfbakery