This month the new Shaman from Evolv arrived in the UK. I
have been somewhat excited about this. The original Shaman was a great shoe
that I wore pretty much exclusively in 2013 – one of my best years climbing on
the Sandstone. In them I ticked some fairly technical test pieces including the
third known ascent of Sansara 7A, The continuing Adventures of Porg 7B+
and perhaps the best of the trio Porgs
Progress 7B (video below).
However, I am apprehensive when climbing shoe companies
relaunch shoes. ‘Don’t fix something if it isn’t broken’, not to mention
potentially ruining memories of a shoe that served me well in a personal purple
patch of climbing. I am happy to report that this is not the case with the
Shaman mark 2!
Just like the old Shaman’s the new shoe maintains the Love bump and
Knuckle Box. For those of you who haven’t tried a shoe with these features I
think they need a bit of explanation. The profile of the shoe, as you can see,
is aggressively down toed and when you put your foot into the shoe it forces it
into this shape. This ensures that your foot is in a powerful position where
you can literally pull in with your toes – in the past this has been achieved
by simply wearing climbing shoes tighter and tighter. Needless to say it is a
lot more comfortable to have a shoe in a down turn mould rather than trying to
mould the shape of your foot through an overly tight fit! My initial thoughts
when I first tried a shoe with a Knuckle box was that this would be a shoe that
would perform well on overhanging walls, as it is so downturned, but would it
perform on vertical or under hanging angles? This has been considered in the
construction of the shoe though and when you stand on footholds on less
overhanging ground the Knuckle box bends as you extend your toes. The result
being that it not only performs well on steep ground, but is a genuine all
round shoe that is just as technical on vertical walls and slabs. I gave them a
test run on a variety of angles at my local wall:
Evolv have also added more rubber on the toe which allows for more
hooking and scumming. This is a welcome addition as I think both toe hooking
and scumming are underrated techniques, particularly outside where they have
helped me get through difficult moves where strength alone is not enough.
Speaking of rubber Evolv have continued to use their TRAX rubber – which I find
as sticky, if not more so, than any other on the market.
Finally Evolv have designed the new Shaman so that it when the straps are
undone the shoe has a wide opening in which to put your foot in. This is much
welcomed as you no longer have the age old battle of trying to get your foot
into a well-fitting shoe through a small opening. The blue and orange colour
design is also nice looking and ensures the Shaman 2 looks as good as it
performs.
So overall I would recommend the Shaman 2. It is still early days (I have
only had a couple of sessions in them), but it seems as if Evolv have taken
what was a very good shoe to begin with and made it even better. All I need now
is a weather window big enough to get outside in them. Roll on spring….
