Used to love my Keen Targhee's. The only issue, which has been happening with most welded sole boots is the adhesive they use, it fails far too early. Even my Targhee styled sandals completely delaminated after a year. Surely due to environmental BS making adhesives less effective.
Rant:
Finding footwear that lasts is a crap shoot even from the best of brands these days.
I take reviews with somewhat of a grain of salt (most likely to leave feedback will be negative), but quality and durability has gone downhill. Some of it is lighter materials which are obviously not going to be as durable, to provide more breathability, particularly for athletic footwear.
Getting older makes for challenges as well, injuries and the fact that our feet change over time doesn't help matters.
Even when I used to run, I couldn't wear New Balance comfortably, the arches were too high for me, but I felt they were quality, just not for my feet. My arches are normal medium and I need more padding on the ball and heel these days. Even my old Saucony's don't quite work for me any longer and sizing is off from prior models.
I literally tried Asics, NB, Saucony,Brooks, Keen, and Nike, probably 15 different pairs and models and ended up with only 3 that I felt would work.
The Nike of course are a discontinued model, but working well so far and were reasonably priced The Keen are a retro style (read somewhat ugly as hell, but comfy, provide good support and have a decent toe box, not as good as the targhees, but better than most. And the Brooks I think cascadia are working well so far but getting into the top price bracket - fine if they remain durable for a reasonable period.
I despise the trend of memory foam. Initially it feels great, but I believe it's a disaster for true support and not building up bacterial stench very quickly, and will likely cause young people problems far earlier in life - One of the primary reasons I've nearly dropped even looking at Sketcher's because they embraced and pushed it hard in almost all of their casual footwear lines - hate the stuff.
The first pair was these summer sneakers with no laces… best damn shoes I’ve ever had. Walking on clouds, helped my physical back issues better… good stuff.
