Well, I went ahead as planned and bought new shoes. The shoes are made by Sievi, for professional use.
The salesman commented that these are real shoes, at least in terms of size, as my shoe size is 46, which is 12 (or 12.5) in the UK (US) system.
When I was preparing to pay for the shoes, I was asked what company I come from. It turned out the most shoes they sell are for personnel of various companies, and people who pay "with their own money", like me, are a rarity. Incidentally, one of the customers of Sievi is the Finnish army.
The shoe model I bought is SIEVI GT 16 S3. Perhaps I went a bit overboad, as these shoes have so much features. It is a bit like buying a SUV to be used in a city.
The "information notice" which came with the shoes refers to all kinds of safety standards, for example on slip resistance on various surfaces. It is interesting reading.
For example, impact protection for the toes is said to be 200 Joules, and compression 15000 Newtons. Heat resistance of the soles is 300 °C, and the steel midsole has penetration resistance of 1100 Newtons. Energy absorption of the seat region is min. 20 Joules. And then there is Gore-tex for waterproofing.
Well, I guess any of this doesn't matter if the shoes are not good when walking.
I walked for an hour with the shoes today, and they feel good in the feet. For some reason they feel lighter than the Meindl hiking shoes I had earlier, but this may be just because of the springiness of the soles. I should have tied the shoelaces a bit tighter, and so my feet moved a bit around, but otherwise there weren't problems. But one never knows the fit after just one hour of use.
In the notice they say that it takes some time for the shoes to adapt to the feet, so they recommend only a couple of hours of use during the first days. It is nice to have shoes which are designed to be used by people who walk all day - these should be good enough for me.
Here are some photographs taken today, one of which shows the new shoes. At this point the shoes look rather fine. But one has to remember they are intended for walking in mud and other challenging conditions. Maybe I should make a new photograph after one year, to compare.
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2 comments:
I don't know about all of the Newtons and such, but you should be OK for the summer as long as the streets and trails don't exceed 300 C! :)
Indeed, one wonders for what conditions these shoes are tested for - Japanese nuclear energy plants perhaps?
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