inov-8 Roclites: ‘How to trash your brand in one easy step’

This post (written in July 2018, shortly after I returned from the Corner-to-Corner) appeared originally on two walking forums. My purpose in writing it was not to complain about the particular shoes in question or about the company that produced them. Rather it was to warn people about trusting brands that in the past they’ve found trustworthy. See what you think.

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I’ve often wondered why companies do it. Why do they take successful products and change them for the worse? I’m directing that question now at Inoveight Ltd: https://www.inov-8.com/. The product I’m referring to is part of their latest range of Roclite trail running shoes.

I’m a long distance walker who puts in a few thousand kilometres each year over a great variety of terrains – hard and soft, even and rough, wet and dry, muddy and rocky, flat and steep. I bought my first pair of Roclites four years ago and since then have used Roclites everywhere. I’ve been very satisfied with them. Until now.

I returned last month from another long trek – just over 1000 kilometres through Wales and Northern England. For about 950 kilometres I wore the pair of Roclite 305s I bought shortly before starting. This is the fifth pair of Roclites I have owned. To say I was disappointed with them would be a gross understatement. These shoes are a travesty.

Let’s make one thing absolutely clear to start with. The faults with these shoes are not faults with this particular pair. Far from it. They are faults with this particular model, perhaps even with the entire new Roclite range. They are the result of desperately poor design. inov-8 have taken a shoe that worked perfectly well beforehand – several thousand kilometres of my trekking testify to this – and they’ve butchered it, one presumes simply to make it look flashier and therefore easier to sell to gullible customers at a higher price.

The most obvious of the faults concerns the uppers. These are essentially inflexible right from the back of the shoe through to the level of the front lace-holes. It’s only there that the shoe has any chance to flex, so it’s hardly surprising that it’s there that the uppers split. And split they do! On both sides! Completely! Right through to the inner padding! You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realise that if you allow something to flex only in one place it is there that the flexing stress will be concentrated. And if you are going to allow flexing only in one place you then have to ensure that the material you use is strong enough to withstand that stress. The material used for the uppers forward of the front lace-holes is nowhere near strong enough. It is boosted on the inov-8 website as being ‘super durable’, but in reality it is not fit for purpose. inov-8 describe the Roclite 305 uppers as follows: ‘Built around the natural anatomy of the foot, the new ADAPTERWEB met-cradle adapts to the natural movement and swelling of the foot in motion.’ Yes, these uppers certainly do adapt – by splitting!

The next fault concerns the tongues. inov-8 describe the shoe as having ‘an integrated tongue gusset’. That certainly sounds impressive. However, what it means in simple English is that the tongue on the shoe is firmly stitched to the uppers. Yes, stitched on both sides, from top to bottom! The result of course is that the distance across the top of the shoe is not adjustable at the individual lace-holes. Whereas in the past – I look back with pleasure at my old Roclite 295s, now no longer available – you could readily adjust the fit of the shoe at each lace-hole independently, making this one a little looser here perhaps and that one a little tighter there, now you get only what the inov-8 designer wants. You don’t fit the shoe to your foot; you fit your foot to the shoe. Oh, and there’s another result too – something your mother drummed into you every day when you were putting on your shoes to go to school! Because the tongue is completely stitched in, the opening through which your foot goes when you’re pulling the shoe on is fixed in size. There is thus none of the flexibility that you get automatically with a normal loose tongue. Getting the shoe on in the morning is now a nasty exercise in stretching and squashing. “Wayne, how many more times do I have to tell you to loosen the laces and pull up the tongues when you’re putting your shoes on?” Clearly the future shoe designer wasn’t paying attention.

The most serious fault concerns the soles. Put simply, they become unsafe fast. You rapidly finish up with shoes that are potentially dangerous, especially on wet surfaces. Some people will of course say that I’m being unrealistic here and that 950 kilometres is a good distance to get out of any pair of trail running shoes. I disagree entirely. Remember that this is my fifth pair of Roclites. I can therefore compare them against my previous pairs. My trekking habits haven’t changed, and with each of those four previous pairs I routinely got the best part of 2000 kilometres. Twice as much as with this latest pair! One possible reason is that the rubber compound now being used for the soles is inferior to that used before – this may well be the case. There’s another reason, however, one that is far more important. It has to do with the cleats on the sole. On these new Roclites there are significantly fewer cleats than before – again I compare with the Roclite 295s. The individual cleats are now also much larger in their surface area. That means automatically that the sole gives much less grip. Again this is not rocket science! The grip that a cleated sole gives is generated primarily at the edges of the cleats, not on their surfaces. That means that the best way to get a sole with the best possible grip is to maximise the cleat edge length, not to maximise the cleat surface area. inov-8 have done exactly the opposite. The cleats on these new Roclites are large, rounded, and have bevelled off edges. A recipe for disaster if ever there was one! Once these cleats have started to wear you’re rapidly left with a sole that has no worthwhile grip in its centre. This is not what you want under you, no matter whether you’re running or walking, especially if you’re on wet rocks or wet grass. These shoes are potentially dangerous – and by that I mean slip-over-and-break-your-leg dangerous.

There’s nothing more to say. inov-8 have taken a successful brand – Roclite – and in one easy step have trashed it.

Left: Roclite 305 after 950 kilometres. Arrows show splits in the upper. Yellow bars show lines where the tongue is stitched in.
Right: Cleat patterns on Roclite 305 and Roclite 295.

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