Why Your Own Bowling Shoes Make a Difference

Rental shoes or your own bowling shoes?

Almost every bowler starts at the rental counter, swapping street shoes for a pair that many guests have worn before. For an occasional game that is perfectly fine. Once you bowl regularly, though – when you join a league, keep track of your average or start caring about the tenth frame – owning your own bowling shoes instead of renting starts to make a difference.

Here is why.

Hygiene

Bowling centers clean their rental shoes: the outside is usually wiped down and the inside sprayed with a disinfectant against bacteria and fungi. That helps, but a rental pair is still worn by many different people, often on the same day.

Your own shoes are worn by you alone, and you decide how they are cleaned, aired and stored.

A consistent slide: the most important reason

Bowling is a game of repetition. Your approach, your timing and your release all depend on a predictable slide. The slide sole lets your sliding foot glide into the release – the left foot for right-handers, the right foot for left-handers – while the other foot pushes off.

Rental shoes are worn by many guests, and their soles wear with use, so they can stick or slide unpredictably and two pairs from the same shelf can feel quite different. If your slide grabs one week and runs long the next, the rest of your game has to compensate: you change your foot speed, your timing and your release point.

Your own shoes wear in with your game. You get to know how they slide, and you can rely on them. How the lane itself affects your game is explained in our beginner's guide to oil patterns.

Cost

Renting shoes means paying a fee on every visit. In a weekly league – in the US a season commonly runs for around 30 to 35 weeks – those fees add up over a season, and they come back every season, for every practice session and every evening with friends.

Your own pair is a one-off purchase. With a little care, good leather bowling shoes last for many years.

Fit and comfort

Rental shoes have to fit as many guests as possible and withstand heavy use, so they are built for robustness rather than an individual fit.

Your own shoes are chosen in your size. Leather uppers also adapt: the more often you wear them, the softer the leather becomes and the more comfortable the shoe feels.

Left- or right-handed?

Performance bowling shoes usually have a slide sole under one shoe only and a rubber traction sole under the other, so they are sold for right- or left-handed bowlers. Rental shoes, by contrast, typically have a slide sole under both shoes, so any guest can wear them.

BOWLIO bowling shoes follow the same principle in genuine leather: a full-length leather sole under both shoes makes them suitable for left- and right-handed bowlers, from beginners to professionals. The upper is genuine leather too, and the white heel with the embossed logo is non-marking. BOWLIO has been making bowling shoes since 2003 and started out producing leather rental shoes for bowling centers.

When to buy your own bowling shoes

If you bowl regularly – every few weeks or more often – your own shoes are worth it. If you play in a league, they belong in your bag from the first week. And if you already own a ball drilled for your hand, your own shoes complete the setup: the same grip and the same slide in every game.

Your first pair of bowling shoes does not have to be your last. But it should be your own.

Further reading: How to choose bowling shoes · Leather or synthetic bowling shoes · Caring for leather bowling shoes