Road testing the Roam
Portraits of Adam, by Morgan Barfield
The best shoes are the ones that take you places but you forget they’re there.
They're the only pair you pack for a trip. The pair that, at a push, goes with everything, the pair that looks better after taking a battering. The pair that after being worn again and again gets another lease of life by being handed down to a younger brother whose feet are growing faster than a tomato plant in the sun.
Enter the KEEN Roam.
KEEN kindly sent Adam and me a pair in the spring, and we've spent the last few months putting them through their paces on runs, hikes and long meanders. If the Seek quickly became my favourite trail shoe, the Roam feels like its tougher, more hard-wearing counterpart. They’re a good set to have to be honest.
Roam takes a little longer to break in than the Seek (which I happily wore for a smooth, springy 20 km straight out of the box without a single complaint). But that extra stiffness comes with a reassuring sense of durability. The upper feels everything-proof, and paired with multi-directional lugs (or so I’ve just read… I am still learning these terms), it's a shoe that encourages you to stop worrying about what's underfoot and keep meandering.
The confidence really came into its own on the steep, loose woodland trails of the Dolomites, where gravel shifts beneath you and clipping roots and rocks and even a little ankle roll is pretty inevitable. The Roam shoulders these small interactions well.
Moving on from technical specs, I want to end on how this shoe feels. The Roam is fun. Very fun.
What I enjoyed most was how playful Roam felt. They're springy, comfortable and versatile, happily moving between running, hiking and everyday wear. They feel super-strong but aren’t overbuilt or hefty feeling on foot. After a few weeks of near-constant use, they'd already become the pair both of us instinctively reached for when heading out the door. A quiet workhorse of a shoe for micro-adventure after micro-adventure.
