Reviewed by: Rob Kraggenhupper(Unregistered User)
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Backpacker Summary:
Lousy hiking shoe, even short day-hiking BUT, very comfortable general, about-town walking shoe. Problem is that it's pushed by Keen to be a hiking type shoe. Also, for as far as I got in them and hard as I went at times, never came close to even feeling I was getting a blister.
I got these (boot version) shortly before the 2010 Kokoda Challenge in Queensland (Australia), managing to squeeze in about 50km of training on them beforehand. They started to show signs of falling apart early on in the training but I just monitored it and it never seemed to get worse than some of the rubber seem pulling away from the shoe in some spots. Otherwise they were very comfortable, light shoe, that needed no break-in whatsoever. Initially I was thrilled with the shoe - fantastic comfort, great traction. Only downside was foot movement, but not so much as with the trail runners I was using before.
I thought they would be perfect for the Kokoda Challenge (93km - 24 hours - trail walk but constant steep climb and descents - carrying a 8kg pack of clothing, equip, food, water) but they started to fall apart 10km in. At first it was more splitting at the seam, btwn the sole and the shoe, but then over time, the lacing eyelets (made out of nylon) started to snap. Once snapped I had to relace the shoe so as to skp over the busted eyelet, which meant greatly comprimising the hold on my foot. By the 70km mark, one of the boots was down to the very top and very bottom eyelets only, which meant the shoe was only slightly more effective than a thong (flip flop for the US readers). At one point, when I had to re-lace them to compensate for a snapped eyelet, another eyelet would snap during the re-lacing. And I was only walking in them, probably never more than 5km/hr and on dry trails. Note - I did notice that probably up to a quarter of the competitors had the same boot - either the shoe or boot version and were doing just fine (also one of the guys on our four person team). I did come across two other competitors who were having the same problem. What might have been the difference is that I'm a big guy - 6'6", 120kg, big feet and maybe the shoe, even though it goes up to large sizes, isn't able to cope with us big guys.
All falling apart issues aside, if not for that, they would have been an excellent, excellent shoe. Although I returned mine and used the money to invest in a higher end hiking boot (Scarpa - SLM3 - wrote a review for them on this site as well), I would still buy them again, but just use them for general walking around town, nothing more. I would have given them three stars in the end, but then there was the lack of customer service to deal with... so they get a two overall. Customer Service:
From Keen (Australia) - not interested. 'Suggested' I go back to the retailer and take it up with them - up to me they said. Implied it must have been something I did, by not using the shoe for what it was intended (if not for walking, what else are they meant for?). HOWEVER, Grundys Shoes (Adelaide, South Australia), where I got them from, were excellent in trying to make up for it. Similar Products Used:
Scarpa, Merrell, Asics (trail-runners)
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