Let’s be honest, most hiking shoes spend more time walking to the coffee shop than they do scaling windswept ridgelines. Well, they do for me. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, so tell your boring mate who takes walking up big hills really seriously to wind his neck in.
Sorry, that was a pretty aggressive start wasn’t it? It’s too hot isn’t it? Sorry. Sorry.
Let’s focus on the shoes, shall we? The original sentiment I tried to express has some foundation. The days of owning one pair of boots purely for the odd weekend in the Lakes are long gone. Since Covid especially, the line between everyday and technical outdoor wear has become permanently blurred, never to return back to its original parameters. These days we want footwear that can survive a commute, a canal towpath, a quick detour up a hill and still look respectable while tutting at slow walkers when you’re running late for a train.
With this new footwear landscape in mind, it’s no surprise that when the new adidas TERREX FREEHIKER SL GORE-TEX popped into my inbox, I had a good long, longing look. Freshly added to the ever-growing FREEHIKER family, this latest version strips things back with a lighter, more streamlined build while keeping all the ingredients that made the original so popular. Waterproof GORE-TEX protection deals with our inevitable summer showers, while the breathable construction means your feet shouldn’t feel like they’ve spent the afternoon in a slow cooker every time the sun makes suggestive advances in your direction. Plus, you know… the words ‘adidas’ and ‘GORE-TEX’ will always be of interest in our house.
The FREEHIKER (no, you stop shouting) has always sat somewhere between trail runner and hiking boot, and the SL continues that balancing act nicely. To my mind, it’s built for people who treat the dog walk like their own workout, so although they’ll not stray too far from the path, they need something grippy and rugged to stop their hard dog dragging them into a weir, never to be seen again.
I feel like I’m saying this a lot and writing it even more, but recent years have seen us embrace outdoor-ready gear more than ever and in the FREEHIKER SL is another acknowledgement that the outdoors no longer begins where the pavement ends. For many of us, it might be as minor as a lunchtime wander through the local park or a post-work workout up the nearest hill, or maybe it’s just a case of popping in the ear pods and simply choosing the scenic route home. These are the shoes that every messy front porch has room for.
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