It's been just over eight years since
my first Astral shoe review. Two years later
a follow up with the Rassler,
which I truly liked. Over the following few years, quality of
construction seemed to be remarkably similar to Five Ten; some shoes
have a decent lifetime, some did not. It's is still luck of the draw on
getting a good pair from either brand. However Astral stopped using
Five Ten rubber, perhaps because Five Ten sold Adidas but I can't say
for sure. Living on the Kaweah in the land of slick granite, I was
happy to help Astral test out their various rubber compounds, and we
walked away (no pun intended) with some which was comparable, if not
better than Five Ten's Stealth Rubber. Then later the next season I
ended up with some Astral river shoes with terrible traction. The true problem is that there is no way to tell
what kind of traction Astral shoes have until "the rubber hit the
road". On occasion we put our life in the hands of a river shoe's
traction, and if you're putting your life into something it should be
predictable. So I've moved back to Five Ten or Adidas shoes with their
trustworthy Stealth Rubber.
