This week, we "retired" one of the Pricepoint Test Shoes, and bought in a few new additions to the "Pricepoint Skate Shoe" lineup. Let's get right to the details of the whats and whys:
As we noted in the "Mailbox" section last week, the Airspeed Official II's didn't quite hold up the way we would've liked. What happened was, the "air chamber" heel pockets blew out, and all of these little red plastic pieces began falling out of the sole, all over the place. Given the failure, we decided to thoroughly cut apart the soles, and check out what's inside. Note how the right shoe is missing almost the entire "impact cushion" (heel stabilizer), while the left still has the bulk of it intact. This is probably because I'm regular-footed, so the right shoe gets the bulk of the impacts.
This is a side view of the "impact cushion". It's a two-piece system, with the top half interlocking with the bottom half. Having disassembled the shoe, it's really pretty clear that this whole thing should have been made out of a soft polyurethane, or some sort of rubber. Not a hard, brittle plastic.
What exactly these hard little plastic pieces were "cushioning" is way, way beyond me...
In this view, you can see where the "impact cushion" has actually left imprints, and deep cuts, in the outsole of the shoe. When one of these gets jammed into your heel, it hurts. The "impact cushion" fits inside the square void, in the heel. Oddly enough, the outsole is made out of a very gel-like, soft rubber compound that actually looks like it might do a lot of "cushioning"... and do it really, really well.
Maybe they just over-engineered these things with one too many bells-and-whistles, purely for the sake of "aesthetics", or "blatantly obvious technical features (that don't really work)"...?
Here, my thumb is pointing at a piece of the red plastic that actually cut all the way through the outsole, and got worn down by scuffing on the ground. The holes under my thumb were probably caused by even more broken-up bits that eventually got dislodged, and fell out of the shoe.
Ultimately, the secret of these shoes (ie, what makes them so damn comfortable, right out of the box) is this very thick, dense, form-fitting, and rubbery insole, with what looks like a neoprene pad under the heel. This burly-ass insole is probably what saved my heels from getting impaled with all those sharp, plastic shards... thank gawd.
All of this was really quite a bummer, too! Given that they were definitely priced right, they looked pretty damn spiffy, and they felt so f'n great, right out-of-the-box...! Oh, well: You win some, you lose some...
With that, we retired the Official II's, and replaced them with:
Bought: Saturday, August 14th, 2010
At: Wal-Mart
Price: $25.00
The First Impressions:
We decided that the best course of action would be to replace the Official II's with another Airspeed shoe, that didn't have the fancy-ass "air chamber" outsoles. Unfortunately, the only thing that I could find in my size, were these Nate Sherwood pro-model kicks. Which really isn't so bad, given that one of our readers (Don Villa) was talking about these very shoes, in his recent letter to us...
Of course, I don't have a problem with Nate at all. That's not what makes these "unfortunate". In fact, I was sort of surprised to find that Airspeed has added quite a few guys to their "pro roster", including Kristian Svitak and Brian Sumner... all guys with a solid reputation for being pretty a-ok joes. No: My problem is with 'em, is this ugly-ass earth-tone "colorway" combined with a totally hideous, all-black outsole design. These look like something you'd wear into combat, or on a tree-hugging nature expedition. Not, something that you'd actually wear skateboarding...
Putting the colorway aside, though: The style and design elements are simple, easygoing, and not too outlandish. The logo isn't quite as "played up" as it was on The Officials, and the tongue has a simple "Sherwood" logo on it that's also, fairly understated. A different colorway would really make these shoes stand-out winners...
I found the outsoles to be a little bit humorous, what with the faux gum-rubber tread. I mean, would it really have cost that much more to use real, vulcanized rubber on the soles...?! Once again, once you get past that... the overall execution looks pretty simple, straightforward, and functional.
I expect these shoes will look a bit different (that's code for "better", by the way...), once they're broken in and they "widen up" a bit. As for the out-of-the-box fit and feel...? They're not quite as comfortable as the Official II's were... but, they're still pretty comfy. I don't have any complaints, and I suspect they'll feel a lot better after a day or so of skating/wearing them around.
Bought: Saturday, August 14th, 2010
At: Wal-Mart, again
Price: $20.00
The First Impressions:
If $25.00 for a pair of pro-model Airspeeds is still a little too much for ya... well, maybe these Creepers by Op will do the trick...! I spotted these at the end of the shoe aisle at Wally World, immediately recognized the logo (Op originally stood for "Ocean Pacific", a fairly well-remembered '80s-era clothing company), and decided that the twenty-dollar price tag, and the "Obviously-Vox-influenced" styling were totally for me...!
Besides the hard-to-pick-out "Op" logo on the tongue, these could totally pass for real-deal Vox's... a factoid that will probably bum the hell out of Vox, if and when they ever read this. Vox pride themselves on being a pretty "pricepoint" brand, anyway. But, these knock-offs were less than half the price of the legits...! Bonus! And, once again: They look great...!
The gum-rubber outsole, like the rest of the package, is simple, understated, functional, and totally Vox-esque. I think the black-over-plaid, and the bold white stitching look killer. The soles are pretty grippy, too. So far, at least...
These feel totally awesome, right out of the box. Soft, supple, and extremely lightweight, these are super-comfy to the extreme. The padded upper and tongue give a lot of protection and support, while the thinner outsole allows for a shit-ton of "board feel". My only question is, how long are they gonna last...?! The design and build looks like it sacrifices a lot of durability for comfort and feel. We'll see, I guess...
Bought: Saturday, August 14th, 2010
At: K-Mart
Price: $15.00 (On sale! Usually, $29.99)
The First Impressions:
Like Op, NSS began life "back in the day" (in this case, the early to mid 1990's) as "Nice Skate Shoes". Once again, Don Villa referenced these in a recent letter, so we made a quick stop at K-Mart on the way to the office to swoop a pair. Just our luck, all NSS shoes were half-price! Talk about a Blue-Light Special...!
The shoes that I really wanted there, were the "Briggs Plaid" (Google 'em, they're worth a quick look)... but, alas, they didn't have 'em in my size. Compared to the Briggs, I think these Parkins look a little bit hokey, and a whole lotta boring. But, believe me: The rest of the line looked even worse...! So, the Parkins it is...
I've gotta add: I found the overabundance of decorative stitching, combined with a near- total lack of brand-logo identification to be just a little bit odd. The "styling" is a strange mix of completely lackluster, and absolutely foreign. But: Step back a few feet, and it all becomes absolutely invisible. They just become anonymous earth-brown clods, with plain white soles.
The sole is [once again] all-gum, and extremely grippy. Even walking around the showroom, the grip on these bad boys was pretty impressive. But! Once again, we have this weird mish-mash of totally unrelated styling elements, all combined on a single sole: Alternating blob-squares in the front, and alternating zig-zags all over the back. Like, none of this was planned to do anything, except to look questionably busy, for busy's sake.
Once you get over the oddball design and aesthetic elements, and put these puppies on... just speaking personally here, I felt a whole lot better about this purchase right away. Aesthetics aside, they look very well-built... and they feel strong, solid, and tough. They're definitely not "the most comfortable" shoes that I've ever worn, but they're not "uncomfortable" by any stretch of the imagination. My only out-of-the-box gripe is that, they're a little bit stiff. Not a lot...! But, just enough to tell me that they're gonna need a couple of good, solid days of breaking-in to really get comfortable in these.
As always, we'll keep you posted on our progress. So far... minus the air-chamber blowout on the Airspeed Officials, of course... all of the shoes have held up commendably well, and they've [largely] been more than comfortable, and durable enough to get the job done. Stay tuned...!
