Having been racing and training for many years, using a wide variety of Scandinavian-made synthetic-leather orienteering shoes, it is great to see that there is now (finally) an equal (or possibly even superior) alternative available down the road at your specialist sports shoe store.

Inov-8 shoes are designed in England’s last Wilderness, the North Pennines and their extensive range of 27 different models are tested and refined by elite fell runners, orienteer’s and adventure racers. The result of this R&D produces some of the best off-road high performance shoes you can buy.

I have been wearing a range of Inov-8 shoes since 2005 in all race distances from sprint to 24hr rogaine and have been very impressed. These shoes can be put on straight out of the box and raced in without the need to ‘break them in’ as you tend to need to do with traditional orienteering footwear.

When a test pair of Roclite 285 shoes arrived in the post from Inov-8 in the middle of the year, I had already been racing in a pair purchased at the Waitangi Carnival in February. That pair has now had 10 months of hard racing action both here and in Australia. This is normally about the time it takes me to demolish a pair of race shoes, but apart from a couple of holes in the upper (caused by some sharp Aussie sticks) and one rubber stud lost (Aussie again) they still have plenty of life left in them.

Now I am pretty harsh on my shoes, so having a pair that is still in good working order after a year of rough treatment gets a big tick from me.

Here is what the Inov-8 website says about the Roclite 285 shoes.

Elite Trail and Adventure racing shoe providing high levels of race comfort and grip performance. Has a low profile midsole with stick rubber outsole. Radical design upper provides excellent support while the fascia-band aids propulsion efficiency of the runoning cycle. Ideal for short fast races.

So, without getting too technical or scientific, let’s evaluate the following – comfort and fit; support; grip; the upper; and the ideal terrain type/activity. [Full review in issue 91]