[at-l] Montrail Melees are not for trail hiking...

[askowronek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Amy)]

On Monday, April 28, 2003, at 08:31 PM, Sloetoe wrote:

> --- Amy <askowronek@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> On Monday, April 28, 2003, at 06:52 PM, Sloetoe wrote:
>
>
>>> ### ...
>>> Melee are intended to be even lighter, AND (even) LESS
>>> DURABLE than most anything else around.
>> How would they compare to, say, Chacos?
> ### I recall Chacos to be vulcanized rubber and nylon webbing.
> If that's the case, they're unsupportive, uncushioned,
> indestructible, and begging for a stick in the toe. I have
> issues with toes.....

And yet people hike in Chacos.  That's all I'm sayin'.


>
>> I tried on bunches, including perhaps the Java.  Melees were
>> the best fit (at least until I noticed the ankle thing.)
> ### Especially with running shoes (which also have an EVA
> insole, unlike heavier shoes), wear them for 20+ minutes before
> you think of commenting, cuz it'll take that long to have the
> shoe relax around your foot, both on the bottom and in the
> padding in the upper. I buy 3-4 pairs of what I'm ultimately
> interested in, then take 'em home and put them on and do
> housework. I've even *slept* in them. The differences you notice
> then are going to be the differences you can forget about 40
> miles into a long day. (Or X hours -- it's time that matters.)

Well.. you have to be able to make *some* decisions fairly
quickly.  If my foot slides out of the heel right away, I
try on different shoes.  Same for if my toe touches the end.

I decided against some shoes with built in sock thingies
because I couldn't see myself having the mental and physical
agility to put the things on in the middle of the night in my hammock.

>
>>> ### FWIW, most of my trail running is done in New Balance
>> 805s, which I too evaluated to be both more substantial *and*
> more pillow-like, than the NB904/5s.
>> I tried the 80x series first, but there was something odd and
>> wrong about how they fit the outside edge of the bottom of my
> feet.
> ### I can believe it. Even with New Balance, variability between
> finished products is disturbingly high -- the first pair of
> NB805s I tried on felt *very* different compared to the pair I
> ended up buying a week later -- even though the shoes I wore to
> compare them with were the same. It seems reasonable to rely
> upon the fit of the shoes you're wearing as representative of
> the rest of the model's examples, but if you're really set on a
> shoe's brand or features and it doesn't seem to fit, try on
> another model, cuz what you had may be.... one of those
> ill-begotten shoes.
>

This is disturbing to me.  I don't have the time or patience to
go to a store and try on several pair of every model, checking
for consistency of manufacture.

-amy