Mountain shoes
Product 2018
Man
The XA Enduro gives you the feeling you’re wearing an indestructible shoe with a tough outer sole. You can attack rocky terrain and you feel nothing through the shoe. The foot strike is solid, static and firm, you feel confident. Even if the chassis feels a little stiff you can be precise with foot placement and move across the terrain with complete confidence. Cushioning is non-existent anywhere, fore foot or heel, only heavier people will find some kind of spring. It is inspired by the S/Lab XA Alpine with Contagrip sole and the XA Enduro is immensely precise due to the close envelopment of the foot and minimal foam.
In the toe box near the stone guard you immediately feel a slight pain; not like the S-Lab Sense Ultra where the junction between the mesh and the stone guard is established with a wide and flexible join, the XA Enduro has a narrower strip and so it feels a bit stiff in this area.
We loved the automatic lacing, which is powerful and effective. Its original twist to this XA Endura is of course its integrated gaiter, which is supple and adapts comfortably to your morphology and is easy to put on. Nothing finds its way inside the shoe, goodbye to bits of grass, stones, sticks and those irritating gritty bits! Despite this addition the weight gain is minimal, the shoe in total weighs 317 grams (Salomon say 300g). Thanks to two little straps at the front and back of the gaiter it slips easily onto your foot, a rather nice surprise! The stretchy gaiter is very well designed.
The heel sits well and doesn’t move around in the downhill thanks to the 5 lacing eyelets that hold the foot firmly in place.
The grip is good, but we thought with a title of “mountain trail running” shoe it would have maybe an even more aggressive grip.
Foot strike and stride are fluid and torsional twist is nice and stiff which helps on angled ground, your foot feels secure, your ankles too, a good sense of stability and safety in rocky terrain. Pronators won’t see the sole squish down too fast. The mesh fabric at the forefoot has good breathability without letting in dust and dirt.
Long distance this shoe is reassuring; it doesn’t allow anything to enter the shoe thanks to its well-designed gaiter. It could do with a little more cushioning when fatigue starts setting in. It’s a great shoe for rough terrain where precision is key, mid foot strike. Salomon categorizes the XA Enduro at 4, on a scale of 1 to 5, for durability. Needs more testing to check this but the construction seems carefully studied to avoid the wear and tear in the usual place where the fore foot bends.
Its 8 mm drop is perfect (25mm and 17mm) for a mountain shoe. The price is high but can be justified by its technical qualities.
17 mm8 mm 
We used this equipment over a long period of time
These are our thoughts after intensive use:
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