I pur­chased these boots last win­ter, replac­ing a pair of well-worn Gaerne’s that had finally sprung a leak. For Tri­als rid­ers in West­ern Wash­ing­ton, leaky boots are a real downer, since we spend sub­stan­tial time walk­ing through muddy/wet sec­tions. I’ve now rid­den 5 or 6 events with these boots, so I fig­ured it was time to share my impres­sions and thoughts about them.

Fit: I have aize 10.5 feet, I ordered the size 11 boot, and they fit fine. I can wear a thin sock under them for sum­mer events, or by loos­en­ing the latches a notch or two, wear a heav­ier sock for cooler rides. These boots are pretty easy to get snug over the entire foot, lead­ing to a very sup­port­ive and secure feel­ing while wear­ing them.

Water­proof­ness: So far, no water intake. This includes the bit­ter cold and wet April tri­als. It also includes slog­ging through a small creek at the last Walker Val­ley Trials.

Trac­tion: trac­tion from the soles seems good. Every­thing was really slick at Walker Val­ley last fall and at Gold Bar last week­end, so it was hard to tell, but I have had no prob­lems pre­vi­ous and no prob­lems with them com­ing off of the foot­pegs or any­thing like that.

Buckles/Straps: some cool fea­tures here: the attach­ment clips are on the oppo­site ends from the adjusters, so once they are adjusted for you feet, the just snap on and snap off. Heav­ier or lighter socks might take one or two notches of adjust­ment, but it’s pretty easy to make.

The only down­side I’ve dis­cov­ered so far is that due to the way the boots tighten up on my feet (your feet may vary :-) ), there is a rather con­spicous fold of leather on the inside of each ankle. So far I don’t notice it while rid­ing, but I have noticed that it rubs on the frame of the bike, and has already taken the smooth fin­ish off of the leather on that area of the boot. A pretty minor thing, and it might be that some­one with dif­fer­ently shaped feet and ankles may not run into any of this.

Con­clu­sions: This is a high qual­ity boot with good pro­tec­tion and good com­fort. Not cheap, but good quality.