When tackling a long route, you are often faced with a tough decision: Do you take a comfortable pair of shoes for the hundreds of feet of jamming in hand, fist and wider cracks, or do you take a tighter shoe that will edge and smear better on the face and slab pitches? Sometimes, I’ve even taken both.
Thankfully, a number of companies now offer shoes that try to simplify that answer and the Astroman is Evolv’s take on the do-it-all shoe. A high-top designed by the legendary Peter Croft, it’s marketed as a high-end, all day shoe.
It should come as no surprise then that the Astromans really stood out on long routes where their comfortable construction was well suited for the multi-pitch realm, from long granite climbs in the Black Canyon and Unaweep to desert sandstone towers.
The high-top construction offered excellent protection from the abuses of wide cracks, and the toe profile worked well in a variety of crack sizes. One of my favorite features is the padded tongue and a small piece of padding for the achilles tendon. Both made the shoe more comfortable than average, and well suited for extended climbing and belaying sessions.
When packing for a recent trip to the Tetons, I threw in the Astromans as my only shoe, as I was traveling light in a carry-on and knew that I might get out for a long route, but would also be doing some single pitch sport cragging on the local limestone and needed a shoe that could handle both with ease.
As it turned out, because of weather I was restricted to some bouldering in the town park and sport climbing on steep limestone at the Cueva de la Cabra. Halfway through my session at Cueva, I realized that I was climbing routes like I would with any sport shoe at Rifle. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I was using the all day shoes for something they were not really intended for.
Now, would I lace them up regularly for sport climbing? No, but I spent extensive testing time in the Astromans while cragging on our local, often super-polished limestone and they performed well, particularly when I switched into a tighther fitting pair.
The question I’ve heard most about the Astromans is if they perform as well as the La Sportiva TC Pros. I’ve climbed for a few years in the TC Pros and in my experience, the Sportivas are better for more technical climbing, such as precision edging. Even with a tighter fitting pair of Astromans, I didn’t feel as comfortable standing on small edges in them. My rather unscientific observation was that the Astromans have a wider toe box and a less aggressive construction for toeing down on little features.
Overall, however, I loved using the Astromans for multi-pitch routes and I will be grabbing them for again for an upcoming trip to climb some desert towers. If you are looking for a high end trad shoe at a reasonable price, these are certainly worth checking out.
Retail is $145, you can find out more and read other reviews here.
Disclaimer: Wait! Before you go handing over your credit card number, ask yourself, do you really need to buy more new stuff? If so, this product is worth a look. In the spirit of full disclosure, this product was provided to SplitterChoss.com for the purpose of reviewing. Don’t worry, though, our integrity can’t be bought!
Hayden Carpenter and Tom Bohanon recently repeated an obscure ice climb on the south side of Mt Sopris. Given a brief mention in Jack Robert’s ice guide, Bulldog Creek Walk is described as being 100 meters of WI 4. What they found was seven pitches of ice in a remote setting that makes for one […]
I too found this to be a pretty good shoe but waaaay to stiff. If this show was a little softer for better precision and edging, it would be dreamy. I am curious if you felt the same way about the stiffness?
I think you’re right on about the stiffness. I think the shoe is stiff and certainly more than the TC Pro. I feel it is the cause of some soreness in my feet when I wear them for a long route, although part of it might just be my feet. I’m curious if I try resoling the shoe with something thinner if I would like the feel better.
Enjoy the shoes….hate that split tongue and wish they would pull it and replace a standard design
Nice review. I like Peter and wondered about the shoe. Does he use them do you know?
Also small grimmer issue needs correction ” grabbing them for again for an”
How did you size your Astromans compared to the TC Pro? i.e. Would a 44 TC Pro fit like a 44 Astroman?