What's going on guys
Alan here with DustyHikers.com and as promised I've got a new 5 shoe review where I take
five shoes into the Dusty Hikers Advanced Footwear Research Laboratory, aka my garage
and I test them against each other on a number of metrics and then share with you guys which
one is the winner. So as I did last year I tested the shoes for comfort, grip, time to dry, and protection underfoot
So let's get right into it. The shoes that I tested this year are the Vasque Chateau Trail LT
These are the first Vasque that I've ever worn and they're quite different than the
other, than the four other shoes. The next one is the Merrell MQM Flex 2
These are the exact same shoes that I tested a year ago against five other shoes and these
are the ones that won. These are the shoes that I love. These are the shoes that I've been wearing for the last year
I also tested the Merrell Moab Speed. All of these shoes are in the low version by the way
These are phenomenal shoes and I knew the moment that I put them on that I was probably going to fall in love with these
In fact, I did. I also tested the Adidas Treadrix Rift R3
I was really interested to see what Adidas had to bring to the table as far as hiking
footwear and I was pleasantly surprised. Finally, I gave Salomon another try
I tested the Salomon Outline GTX last year and hated them. So this year I tried the Salomon X Ultra Pioneer Aeros, A-E-R-O, not A-R-R-O-W
I think a lot of people are going to like them but I didn't like them at all
Alright, so let's get right into it. Okay, so the first test that I did was slip or grippage or grip
What I do is I have a suspension strap trainer in my garage and I put the shoes on and then
just start backing my toes up until like this. So I'm kind of like on my toe until they start to slip
The point where they start to slip where I can't hold it anymore, I just kind of back it up a little bit to where I can hold that position
And then I just rope down the line there that I was on as far as the inches
The shoe that was able to go out the farthest, I just put that at zero and then all the other
shoes that failed before those, I just go by inches from that point forward
It's not surprising that Vibram outperforms everybody else. Vibram is amazing. I think Vibram won last year as well
So I have two shoes this year that have Vibram. The Merrell Milad Speed and the Vasque Satoro Trail LT
The Vasque Satoro Trail LT were the ones that won. They have this super, super grippy, interesting lug pattern
I don't know if you can see that but they're like little micro lugs and these outperformed
all of the others. Vasque says that this Vibram sole is exclusive for this shoe
It's also super, super lightweight. You can see how thin that sole is right there
Anyway, these shoes won the grip test. The next shoe that came in were these Vibram soles, again, that are on the Merrell Milad Speed
So Vibram again, they just do better with their compounds. These are super grippy
Again, I walked in all of these shoes for a month and sometimes I was on wet conditions
and you could tell a big difference between the Vibram shoes and then the other shoes
just the different solutions and compounds that they have. Okay, so we said the Vasque got first place
The Merrell Milad Speed got second place, followed closely by the Merrell MCM Flex 2
which has the Quantum Grip. Yeah, Quantum Grip. These are very, very grippy
They're not Vibram but, you know, I've been wearing these for a year and they're amazing
They held up very well, I would say, as well. There's a little bit of wear here on the outside but that's a year of wearing these shoes and
they still perform very, very well in this test. And then finally, second to last for grip is the Salomon X Ultra Pioneer Aero
This is the Contragrip compound. Let's see if I can find, yeah, Contragrip
You can see it right there. These are really disappointing. I mean, Salomon, I would say, you know, you say that these perform really well on mud
and stuff like that but for me, if a shoe is not grippy on, you know, polished concrete
like that, it's not going to be grippy on rock either. It's not going to be as grippy on mud or on wet logs or anything that you're hiking over
So I think that Contragrip just doesn't work as well as Vibram
And I tested these two years in a row and they did not perform very well. Then finally is the Adidas Teric Swift R3
Again, these shoes are slightly different than the other shoes. This is a very, very hard rubber compound for low top hikers like this
It's got more of like a boot sort of sole to it
So this is a very hard rubber and they're just not going to perform as well as the other
shoes do on grip. Okay, so the way that I score these after each round is that first place will give the
shoe five points, second place will give the shoe three points, so there's a little draw
if you really want to get first place. Third place will give the shoe two points, fourth place will give the shoe one point
and then fifth place gets the shoe no points. So after round one, we can see that the Basque Satoto Trail LT won the grip test so they
have five points. Next comes the Merrell Moab Speed, also Vibram with three points, Merrell M2 and Flex 2
But the Quantum Grip was just two points at this point, Salomon X Ultra Pioneer was
one point and Adidas Tarek's Rift R3 with zero points. Hey, you're almost halfway through this video
You've already spent this much time with me on this video. Obviously you're finding something interesting, near or important for your next hiking shoe
buying decision. Please consider hitting like. I also am making very in-depth videos on each one of these shoes, so if there's a shoe here
that you're interested in, you're definitely going to want to go check out those videos. Okay, the next test that I did was which shoe dries out faster
I think this was an interesting test, so what I do is I just take the dry weight, I weigh
all of the shoes, just one single shoe of the pair, I record that weight and then I
dunk the shoes in water for like five seconds, shake out the excess water and weigh them again
Then I calculate the percent weight increase from their dry weight and then I just keep
weighing the shoes every 60 minutes, every hour, until one of them gets down back to
its original dry weight and that's the winner. You can see the results here on this graph
The Adidas Teric Swift R3 are much heavier shoes and I think they also use harder plastic
They just have material in here that just does not like to soak up water and they're
also quite heavy. This is all hard plastic. Feel that? You can hear that all this stuff around here is all hard plastic
None of that's going to soak up water. It just means that they're a little bit clunkier and kind of more boot-like, but they perform
very well in this test because they're not taking on as much water simply because of
the materials that they're made out of. Surprisingly, the Vasque Satoru Trail LT performed second best in this test
These are extremely, extremely lightweight shoes. Just feeling the shoes, this is the heaviest one, there's a very obvious difference in weight
These shoes are also black and when I put them out to dry and I weighed them every 60
minutes, I think being glassy, she probably heated up a little bit more quickly and that
may have allowed them to get rid of the water faster. Then the Salomon X Ultra Pioneer Aero and the Merrell Antenna Flex 2, they perform similarly
I would say in the time to dry test. The shoes are also quite similar as far as the way that they're made and the weight and
the materials that they use, so that's not surprising. Then the shoe that did the worst on this was the Merrell Moab Speed
So this is my favorite, but they did not perform as well on time to dry
I think the consideration here is if you're going to be in an environment, hiking a lot
where you think that your shoes are going to get wet and you don't want Gore-Tex, having shoes that are going to dry out more quickly is going to provide just a better experience
for you. If your shoes get wet and it takes like four days for them to dry out, you're just going
to be, I think, more miserable. Okay, so after round two, we can see that the Adidas Terek Swift R3 now have five points
the Vasque have eight points, so they're beating all of their shoes at this point
My favorite is the Merrell Antenna Flex 2, only have two points, Merrell Moab Speed have
three points. So we have two more tests to do, foot protection and comfort
Okay, next test, which shoe provides the most protection underfoot? Okay, so what I do here is I put a different shoe on each foot and I just have a head-to-head competition
I put a rock out in my patio and then I just step on that rock with each foot and decide
which one between those two provides more protection and whichever shoe wins gets a
point and the one that doesn't gets no points. So after doing a head-to-head with all the possible permutations, which I think is eight
different tests, these are the results. So the Adidas Terek Swift R3, not surprisingly, beat all the other shoes in a head-to-head competition
In fact, they won this, they got first place in this one. Again, the decision by Adidas, which is kind of surprising given that they're primarily
like a sports shoe, is that they went with a very, very rigid, tough, hard rubber sole
The sole actually is made by Continental, which is really known more for making car
tires, I want to say. I think it works. I was pleasantly surprised with these shoes in general, but I think that these shoes do
provide significantly more protection than any of the other shoes, but it's not surprising
right, because they're much heavier. So they opted to go with BC and more protection versus being lighter and perhaps a faster hiker
The Merrell Moab Speed and the Salomon X Ultra Pony Arrow, that's way too long of a name
these shoes performed pretty much identical. In fact, when I did the head-to-head with these, I couldn't decide which one provided
more protection. They're basically the same. They're a slightly different experience, though
I think this one, I didn't check, but I think that the Salomon has a rock plate in it, so
it provided enough protection that I couldn't feel the rock, or I felt the rock, similarly
to the Merrell Moab Speed, but it wasn't that it just completely absorbed the rock
It was kind of seeding a little bit, whereas this shoe has a very, very thick, as you can
see, that very thick midsole and even a thick sole, and so this shoe actually, when I stepped
on the rock, it just kind of almost seemed to absorb the rock underneath, and so I did
have to purchase, like, on my heel and in my forefoot, even when stepping on a large
rock like that. And then the shoe that performed the worst was the Satoro, the VapSatoro Trail LT
Again, this is a zero-drop shoe. It's got a very, very thin midsole for a hiker
It feels almost more like a sneaker. I absolutely love these shoes, by the way
They have this insole-midsole system called Biotic, I think, and it feels really good
on your foot, so I'm definitely bringing these to Italy. I'm moving to Italy in, like, two weeks, but probably going to just even wear these
to work, actually. Again, I don't think I'd take them on a multi-day, like, crew hike just because I'd be too afraid
of, like, the bottom of my foot getting bruised by rocks, but they don't, yeah, because they
don't provide often protection underfoot. Okay, so here are the results after round three
The Adidas Terex have jumped out into the first place. They beat all the other shoes on both time to dry and foot protection, so again, they
got zero points for the grip test, but then they got five points each for the first place
finishes in time to dry and foot protection. Second place right now is the VasSatoro Trail LT with eight points, and then the Merrell
Moab Speed is in third place. The Salomon X Ultra Pioneer is in fourth place, and the Merrell MQM Flex 2 is in last right
now, and those were my favorites the year before. Okay, last and final test, and perhaps the most important test, which shoe is the most comfortable
Okay, so again, I wore these shoes for a month. I did at least 24 miles in all of these shoes, and in every single case when I took these
things out of the box, I went on, like, a six or seven mile hike, and so I spent quite
a bit of time in these shoes, and so I would just rotate. On one day, I would wear one shoe, and then I would wear these shoes all day
I'd wear them to work. I'd walk around at work, and so the first one is, are they, you know, ready straight
out of the box? And so all of the shoes, I felt like you could just buy these shoes, deliver them to your
house, and you could just go on a walk or a hike in all of these shoes and have zero
problems except for the VasSatoro Trail LT. They have an interesting heel system here
Normally, there would be, like, more of a bucket back here for your heel bone, but these
are quite straight, and so I got blisters on both heels when I walked in these
The first time, I walked, like, nine miles that first day, and I got blisters, but otherwise
these shoes are amazing, and now I don't get the blisters anymore. Okay, the next criteria for comfort was end-of-day comfort
At the end of the day, after I've worn these shoes all day, 12, 13, 14 hours, which ones
am I really ready to get off my feet? All of these shoes are wonderful except for the Salomon X Ultra Pioneer Aero
So at the end of the day, all of these shoes, my foot was fine
In fact, it felt great, actually, at the end of the day, wearing these shoes
My feet felt wonderful except for the Salomons. I was so ready to get those things off at the end of the day
They just don't really fit my foot. They have this technology called Sensafit, which Salomon says is supposed to make the
shoes kind of like mold to your foot, and they're supposed to feel really good, but they just don't work for my feet
And that was the same with the Salomon Outline GTX. These shoes just, I don't know what it is, but the arch in the front, the arch support
just feels like it's really far up front, and it's quite pronounced
I'd say I have, like, normal to low arches, but I do have an arch in my foot, and that
was just uncomfortable by the end of the day. Yeah, I just, they're not as comfortable
They might be slightly narrow, and I would say if you're going to buy these, check online
what people are saying. They're quite new. It might be that they're just a little bit too narrow for my foot, and that's why I'm
having those issues. Okay, next one for comfort, the next criteria was heel slip
None of these shoes had any problem with heel slip. The Adidas Kevic Swift R3 do have a slight heel slip, and I think that's just because
of how rigid they are. After a month, I still experienced that, but it wasn't like I was able to break them in
and they stopped slipping on my heel. It's very slight heel slip, and again, I never got blisters in these shoes, but it would
be interesting to see if I walked, like, six hours a day, five days in a row, if I did
get blisters in these, so that's my experience. I think it's just a function of how rigid and hard this sole is
There's not a lot of give in it compared to the other shoes, and I think that's why
my heel kind of tended to slip in these. Okay, next criteria is laces
I had zero issues with the laces on any of these shoes except for the Adidas Kevic Swift R3
In fact, if you search these on the Internet, that's what a lot of people complain about. And I just want to say, like, if you're going to spend this much time developing a shoe
you can find laces that don't come untied. These laces just love to come untied, so I would have to double knot these and cinch
them down really hard. To a lesser degree, the Salomon X Ultra Pioneer Arrow also had lace issues
I don't know why it is, but these as well, I would have to, you know, double knot them
and cinch them down really tight, otherwise I'd feel like they were sort of coming undone
a little bit. But for the other shoes, I had zero problems. Okay, the last criteria for comfort is footbed
That's just sort of how squishy it is, how comfortable my foot felt in there
And again, all of these shoes are great, but some of them are better
So as far as footbed, the only one that I really had problems with was, again, the Salomon
X Ultra Pioneer Arrow. All the other footbeds are adequate or even wonderful
I would give special shout-out to the Biotic footbed from the BASC Seshtotal Trail LT
Those feel very, very nice on your foot. Again, I don't think I'd choose those on a long multi-day hike, but they do feel wonderful
to wear. Okay, finally, the results after four rounds testing for grip, time to drive, protection
in the foot, and comfort. The Merrell Moab Speed lined up with 14 points total, with one first place, two second places
and a last place. These are great shoes. I think they're going to work for a lot of people
I knew the moment that I put them on that these were going to be the winners, and in fact, they turned out to be the winners
Okay, that is this year's edition of testing five hiking shoes and picking the best one
I am probably going to go on a thru-hike from Bologna to Florence after I move to Italy
There's a wonderful thru-hike called the Way of the Gods or La Via del Dei, and I'm definitely
going to bring these shoes with me. The Merrell Moab Speed. Hey, here at Dusty Hikers, this is what I do
I buy shoes, walk around in them for a long time, put them in my advanced footwear research
laboratory, aka my garage, test them, and then share the results with you guys
I also have hiking videos that I'll be uploading, and so if that's something that you're interested
in, please hit subscribe, and I will see you guys in the next one