Adam Ondra Designed His Dream Bouldering Shoe: La Sportiva ‘Ondra Comp’ Review

Adam Ondra is arguably the best all-around rock climber on the planet. From dispatching the world’s hardest sport climbs and boulders to running up the Dawn Wall on his first visit to Yosemite (it took Tommy Caldwell 7 years), it seems he can do anything on the rock.

However, Ondra hasn’t had the same success in indoor bouldering competitions, so he designed the La Sportiva Ondra Comp to optimize his results in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

I have seen plenty of professional athletes license products they had zero hand in designing. But Ondra put out content showing his involvement, and he had very specific demands.

Modern indoor bouldering requires standing and moving on flat volumes that slope downward. Competition problems also often require the use of tiny footholds attached to the same low-angle surface. Ondra’s footwear crux for the Olympics was that he didn’t have a shoe that could do both at the highest levels.

I tested the La Sportiva Ondra Comp for 4 months in its intended environment of modern indoor bouldering gyms. During that time, I also tested it outdoors. For the last 2 months, it was the only climbing shoe I used, to the tune of multiple times per week.

In short: The La Sportiva Ondra Comp does justice to its namesake. The shoe provides the flexibility, sensitivity, and grip required to move dynamically off volumes and enough edge stiffness to power off tiny screw-on chips. Additionally, it proved excellent for smearing on traffic-worn limestone and “smedging” on tiny nubbins. The Ondra Comp is a great choice for high-end indoor competition climbing and outdoor climbing at higher grades.

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La Sportiva Ondra Comp Review

Standout Features

Shape

Like many bouldering-oriented rock shoes, the Ondra Comp has an aggressive downturn, is very soft and pliable, and is moderately asymmetric.

The shoe uses Vibram’s stickiest rubber, XS Grip2, and La Sportiva encased the entire toe box in rubber. The Italian brand applied its P3 tensioned rand system to the Ondra Comp; the rands start under the toes, crisscross under the arch, and continue to the back of the heel. This rand configuration maintains the shape and structure of the shoe.

‘SenseGrip’ Rubber

What is truly unique about the Ondra Comp actually isn’t visible. Under the ball of the foot and middle portion of the toe cap sits a soft patch of rubber La Sportiva calls SenseGrip. There is no midsole backing this softer area. La Sportiva claims SenseGrip delivers soft cushioning while allowing as much sensitivity as possible.

La Sportiva put a 1.1mm Lapsoflex midsole in the Ondra Comp, but only at the edges of the forefoot. This keeps the middle forefoot area soft and sensitive, and only provides a bit of stiffness at the parts of the shoe that are crucial for edging.

Other Specs

The body is microfiber, and the shoe is slip-lasted and unlined. An elastic insert covers the top of the shoe, and a single Velcro closure handles foot retention duties.

Ondra’s trademark “AO” graces the closure strap and rand, and his autograph is on one of the two heel tabs. In my opinion, La Sportiva didn’t blast that the world’s strongest all-around rock climber had a hand in making the shoe.

Finally, the shoe has no added PFAS, the heel tabs are recycled, and the elastic on the upper is 44% recycled.

My size 42 Ondra Comps weigh a verified 1 pound, 2.6 ounces per pair, and the MSRP is $219.

Fit

One look at the Ondra Comp from the top, and I knew it would fit differently than other sporty La Sportiva climbing shoes.

First off, the heel is visibly narrower than any other La Sportiva sport climbing or bouldering shoe. This has been a bane for me, as I have a very narrow heel, and other Sportiva shoes have been baggy around the sides, so much so that large folds develop. Not so with the Ondra Comp — it’s the first La Sportiva shoe that fits my tiny heel.

I have a wide forefoot but thin vertically. I usually fit better in low-volume versions of rock shoes as long as the toe box is wide enough. For my “duck foot,” the Ondra Comp fits great. The front of the shoe is wide enough that my fifth metatarsal didn’t push out past the edge of the outsole, which isn’t always the case.

Overall, the Ondra Comp is the best-fitting La Sportiva rock shoe for my duck foot to date.

I usually wear a 42 (size 10 U.S. running shoes) in La Sportiva sport climbing and bouldering shoes, and the Ondra Comp is consistent with that fit.

La Sportiva Ondra Comp Testing: In the Gym

Ondra himself admitted that indoor competitions, especially bouldering, are not his forte. Like any athlete at the top, he was looking for every marginal gain possible, which included building his own shoe with La Sportiva.

A lot of times, I think product segmentation is just a way to dig into customers’ wallets, with brands citing that the narrowest subcategories within each sport require specialized gear. So initially, I was wary that the Ondra Comp was another attempt to create new channels for climbers to spend more money.

A shoe specifically for indoor bouldering (not indoor climbing in general) made me grumpy and skeptical, especially with the Adam Ondra hook.

Smearing Volumes

I don’t like making big, dynamic moves from low-angled volumes. To me, this necessitates powerful moves off of a slab, which feels and sounds wrong. Both feel insecure when quickly applying force through a shoe. Smearing a flat, downfacing surface (or slab), or dynoing just don’t compute.

I focus on moving slowly, with no sudden force generation, so as not to upset my tenuous foot placements on slabs. But I gave it the college try, and I admit that I could feel the La Sportiva SenseGrip effect under the middle of my forefoot right away.

The shoe is extremely soft and flexible, so I could contort my foot and shoe to gain the most surface underfoot. And right where the shoe bent at the ball of my foot, I felt the surface texture when standing on volumes.

This wasn’t like super-sensitive slippers I’ve used, or a bare foot against rubber feel. There was a small amount of cushioning, like wearing a thin sock in said slipper. The SenseGrip material delivered a touch of comfort, but it bottomed out so that I could feel what was underneath the outsole.

This sensitivity gave me more confidence in my foot’s ability to power off flat, edgeless, low-texture surfaces. If I lacked adhesion, feedback warned me instead of unknowingly peeling out.

The Ondra Comp’s relatively wide toe box allowed my foot to relax and spread out when standing on volumes. This allowed more of my foot to feel connected to the volume’s surface, adding confidence.

The only thing I wished for was a larger SenseGrip area. It felt like an oval section underneath the middle of my forefoot, but I could have used more of it laterally. But maybe that’s the limit while still providing some edging power.

Edging/Smedging

Soft, sensitive shoes usually lack edging power. While the La Sportiva Ondra Comp isn’t an edging powerhouse, it did it well for an indoor competition climbing shoe.

The 1.1mm Laspoflex midsole on the outer edges of the forefoot, along with the 3.5mm Vibram XS Grip2 outsole, provided stiffness that I felt was a significant step above slippers — but lower than La Sportiva Solution Comp. It was rigid enough to outperform slippers when edging screw-on chips on vertical walls.

The outer rim of the forefoot is much stiffer than the SenseGrip portion, but it was pliable enough to “smedge” well. This means smearing with the edge or the transition of the edge to the outsole to put the most surface area on minimal features.

Heel and Toe Hooking

As I noted, this was the first time a La Sportiva sport climbing or bouldering shoe was narrow enough to hug my heel. That, by itself, made it a better heel hooker than any other shoe from the brand.

The heel is fairly minimal and formed from the P3 rand wrapping around and mating with an extension of the outsole. An additional patch of rubber partially fills in the gap between the rand and the outsole. There is no heel cup.

The heel was adequate for all but the smallest features or, ironically, the flat, slabbed-out surfaces of the smoother volumes. Other shoes with full-textured heel cups fared better for these more challenging heel hooks.

However, the ribbed toe cap felt like cheating on toe hooks. The texture and rubber compound were very grippy, even on slopers. There is a center longitudinal rib of the SenseGrip material, and I felt it cushioned the blow of swinging toe hooks.

However, I was unsure if it helped with sensitivity. The rest of the toe cap was very sensitive and provided great feedback, especially when slowly releasing a toe hook to prevent body swing.

Bouldering Outdoors

Although La Sportiva and Ondra state that the Ondra Comp is for modern indoor bouldering, I speculated that they would make excellent shoes for my local limestone crag.

My usual haunt has steep, pocketed sport climbs that favor powerful movement. About half the routes have been in action since the late ’80s or early ’90s, so they are well-trafficked. Popular routes have holds that literally feel like bars of soap.

The routes at higher grades often have super minimal footholds at the bottom. I suspected the characteristics that helped the Ondra Comp perform well on plastic would transfer well to this cliff.

I was stoked to find that was true. If the route was popular, the feet were larger but worn smooth. The soft SenseGrip area of the forefoot gave me the feedback to not feel “blind” on it. On harder routes, tiny footholds often had the sharp edge worn off. The shoe’s ability to smudge was crucial to making use of these hardly visible features.

The toe on the Ondra Comp was pointy and thin enough to fit into most pockets typical of limestone. Its softness and pliability allowed me to “claw” my foot and pull my hips in on steeper sections.

Like other shoes with toe boxes encased in rubber, the Ondra Comp could feel hot on warmer days, and the all-black color didn’t help when the sun out. I made a point to put them in the shade during belays.

During the last 2 months of testing, I refused to climb in this area in anything other than these shoes, even though I own a library of shoes that are not “indoor bouldering shoes.”

La Sportiva Ondra Comp: Final Say

When La Sportiva sent me the shoes, the marketing calling out the Ondra Comp as a specialty indoor bouldering competition shoe made me sort of upset. “Do we really need another category of climbing shoes?” I wondered.

Indeed, the shoes performed incredibly well on the parkour-like, competition-style boulders in my local gyms. The softer SenseGrip area made me feel secure on low-angle volume surfaces, which I struggle with the most. The somewhat hard edge area tenaciously smedged tiny chips and edged better than other soft bouldering shoes on vertical or slightly overhanging problems.

The La Sportiva Ondra Comp was also a sharp and effective tool for my local steep limestone sport crag. The attributes that made it so good indoors made it an excellent choice for my particular crag.

I wouldn’t view the La Sportiva Ondra Comp as an indoor bouldering shoe; I would consider it a great sport climbing or bouldering shoe for both indoors and outdoors.