This is a great crack (thin to wide) and slab shoe for rough rock (vedauwoo, south platte, j-tree, etc). The stiff sole (and hard rubber) will NOT smear well on smoother surfaces. The shoes have pretty thin toe profile, though because of its board last, they will be thicker than a pair of slippers for thin crack jam. And, they are VERY comfortable, especially with some break-in.

Now, the fusion 3 rubber is HARD, and the shoes functioned better with some evolv rubber resole. Unfortunately, the rand is still of the original rubber (and feels quite slick in some jams), and it appears it may last beyond the rest of the shoe (wide cracks definitely destroy shoes fast). Hopefully, the fs quattro rubber has a better balance.

I'm not sure I'd recommend the ace as a "beginner" shoe, as most climbers start in the gym and/or sport climb these days and these shoes suck at both. The board last does help new climbers with poor foot strength, but a lot more is in the ankle; the last of the shoe won't help much there.

I climbed in the Aces when they first came out. They were awesome and that holds true today. a great all around shoe.

These shoes are one of my personal favorites, they do just about everything well. I've had them on everything from 5.6 slab to 5.12 nightmares and they have performed suprisingly well. My only dislikes about the shoe is when you get to around 5.11 slab the rubber seams to have trouble maintaing friction. The only down sides to the Aces are the high price tag and the very hard rubber.

I've been rocking the grey and black pair of aces for about a year now. As mentioned before, not great for overhanging, but the bomb on everything else pretty much. People complaining about them not being suited for slab is just silly... I mean come on, you either want a performance shoe, or you want a sticky slab shoe. I think Mad rock might be close to combining both. I HATE Fusion rubber, so I threw on some C4, and now they edge phenomenally, the fusion rubber also wore out pretty quick. Good beginner to intermediate shoe. Definately going to rocking this shoe outside for the next years to come.

Update 6 years on:
I LOVE this shoe still for long days in the alpine, or any time I am crack climbing. They are so comfortable and stiff, that when jamming in any size crack I feel no discomfort what so ever. On harder routes, where I'm edging, I often find myself wishing that I had both more sensitivity and that they were more aggressive. That being said, I have a few different pairs of shoes, and I'll typically take the ones I expect to be wearing.

I've had a few different pairs of "crack climbing" shoes, and these have remained my favorite. I recently just bought my second pair of them, and the first pair got 4 or 5 resoles before they were falling apart.

I like these shoes a lot! The flat edge makes it very easy to edge on VERY small cracks (assuming you keep the bases clean) and the liners sure make em comfortable...They do well on most types of climbs however are pretty weak when it comes to overhang...The crack performance makes up for it however. These are great beginner shoes and will get mine resoled for sure! With C4 on these things are like a dream!