Heel for a shoe

The shoe of claim 13, wherein the spring is a coil spring guided within the heel.

A heel for a shoe, comprising:

• a butt-end securable to a shoe;
• and
• a base providing a heel tip at its free end, the base movable in relation to the butt-end, with the base and butt-end connected through telescopic components, a cooperating sleeve and pin mounted coaxially within the heel, the sleeve having a keyway profiled to fit over a key on the end of the pin when the keyway and key are aligned and the sleeve and pin configured to hold the heel in a retracted condition when the pin is in the sleeve and to hold the heel in an extended condition when the pin is withdrawn from the sleeve, and a mechanism to rotate the pin with its key and the sleeve with its keyway, into alignment to enable movement of the heel between the retracted and extended conditions, at least one spring between the base and butt-end to bias the heel into the extended condition, a first telescopic component to extend from the butt-end and a second telescopic component to extend from the base, with a third telescopic component received slidably within the first component and extending slidably over the second component, the tip of the heel being configured to engage the ground with the heel in the retracted condition and in the extended condition, the tip having first and second ground engaging surfaces which are provided on the tip at a suitable angle in relation to each other.