A quick review of my new Bestard Breithorn Pro GTX walking boots.
While planning for a six-week trip to Iceland I bought a pair of Salomon Quest 4D GTX hiking boots. The fit was incredible; I’d never had a pair of footwear that fitted so well out of the box. However after a few weeks of hiking I noticed that they had started to disintegrate and by the time I’d come home the edges of the soles were looking pretty worse for wear.
This lead me to look for a good quality pair of boots which were tough enough to not only withstand a fair amount of walking but to also be able to put up with the abuses of trail digging. Sport Pursuit hosted a sale for Bestard Boots, a relatively small Spanish company that I hadn’t heard of. I couldn’t find any reviews of these particular boots, and virtually no reviews for any Bestard boots. I took the plunge and bought a pair hoping they would be as good as they looked in the pictures! Take a look at the Sport Pursuit website here http://www.sportpursuit.com/sales for some great deals!
On receiving my parcel a few weeks after ordering, I was excited to get a better look at these boots. First impressions of the quality of the boots was good, construction is with high quality nubuk leather and a solid Vibram sole tops the boot off.
Initial fit was not as impressive as my previous Salomon boots but after wearing them around the house for a few hours and playing around with the lacing I had them fitting well.
In use the lacing system works well. Bestard use their own lace lock technology, which isolates the tension on the lace between the lower and upper foot so you can get the fit right. This is a handy feature and a simple system, but after a fair amount of use the lace lock has come loose a few times. I think in the long term this system isn’t quite as good as Salomon’s system.
The Vibram sole has good grip on most surfaces, maybe a little less grip on wet rock than my previous Salomon boots had but I’m usually walking on softer ground. There are a few small slits that have appeared from walking on sharp rock but I can’t see these being a problem. After a reasonable amount of walking the soles aren’t showing any signs of significant wear.
The boot provides good ankle support and despite doing a few long days trail digging on very steep terrain I’ve yet to roll an ankle! I’ve been out in some wet, muddy conditions and as you would expect from the Gore-Tex liner my feet stayed dry and toasty!
The tough rubber rand has shrugged off a fair few knocks on rocks and tree stumps without showing any signs of wear. I have conditioned the boots using Nikwax’s specific nubuk leather water proofer and it’s done a great job of keeping the leather supple and water beading off the boots.
One of the few issues I have with the boots is that I find the laces are a little long. My feet are a relatively small size 8 and I’m guessing Bestard us standard length laces for all of their boots. This may sound trivial but it is slightly annoying having to tie an extra knot or two to stop the laces flapping around and being prone to catching on roots and rocks.
So far I’ve been really pleased with the boots and can highly recommend them. I’ve got a feeling they will last me a good few years at least, and I don’t think I’m going to have any problems with them falling apart anytime in the near future!