Road testing the Roam
Portraits of Adam, by Morgan Barfield
The best shoes are simply vehicles for adventure.
They're the only pair you pack for a trip. The pair that, at a push, goes with everything. The pair that gets handed down to a younger brother whose feet are growing faster than a tomato plant in the sun. The pair that looks better after it's taken a battering. The pair you forget you're wearing.
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 counter-part. 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…still learning these terms), it's a shoe that encourages you to stop worrying about what's underfoot and keep moving.
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 or even a little ankle roll is pretty inevitable. The Roam shoulders these small conflicts well.
But moving on from technical specs, I want to end on how this shoe feels. Fun. Very Fun.
What I enjoyed most was how playful Roam felt. They're bouncy, comfortable and versatile happily moved between running, hiking and everyday wear. They feel super-strong but importantly aren’t over built or hefty feeling on-foot. After two 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.
