Removing plastic bottoms in cleats?

Are there any alternatives to using the black twisty thing they give you? They get worn out so fast I didn't notice until it seemed too late to get them out with it once again, I thought I'd be fine because I got them out when they were really low last time. I have one left on my shoe and was wondering if there was anyway to get them out. I don't want to get new cleats...and I can't play with one crappy one and other new ones. Will I have to put the old ones back in and just play the rest of the season like that or is there a trick to getting it out?

Removing plastic bottoms in cleats?
I always hated when Linemen would bring us their practice shoes and ask us to change out the spikes they had been wearing for 3-4 weeks. It was a very rare occasion for us to get all the spikes removed with just a plastic wrench in those cases.





There are a couple things you can do in your case, and it certainly doesn’t involve leaving one bad spike in the cleat. First things first; toss out those free plastic wrenches they give you when you buy the cleats. They suck. Get a good steel cleat wrench, you’ll be able to remove spikes that the plastic wrench won’t. (Here is an example of one: http://www.morleyathletic.com/images/M16...





If the steel wrench doesn’t work, all it will take is a little elbow grease. Get yourself a nice pair of Locking Pliers. (They look like this:http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stor...


These things have a little vice clamp on them so you can lock them on the spike as tight as possible, since the spike is useless anyway it won’t hurt anything.





If you still can’t get it, then you can cut away the plastic part of the cleat with whatever shears you have handy. This will reveal a screw (usually a Phillips head) and you can try your hand with a screwdriver or once again try the Locking Pliers, locking them directly on the screw this time.





Hopefully it will only take a good set of Locking Pliers, but either way never throw away a good pair of cleats because of one bad spike; the toughest of spikes can definitely be removed with a little bit of patience.



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