Evolv Generals

I am writing this review to hopefully provide some insight to those hard climbing tradsters that are interested in the performance side of these shoes. Most of the reviews I read prior to getting these babies were not very helpful at all in letting me know how they would climb. I will first say that I am skeptical of any high top shoe that is not the TC Pro. I owned a pair of Evolv Astromans for a while and though they performed well in a splitter crack setting, trying to stand on any kind of edge in those things was an absolute nightmare. I also currently have a pair of Boreal Ballet Golds that I enjoy thrutching up wide cracks in Vedauwoo but in my opinion they are too stiff to be used when the climbing gets hard and you need to really feel what you are standing on.

The TC´s are great both at face and crack climbing but one thing they lack is durability. In order to prevent the rand from peeling off almost immediately I have been forced time and time again to slather these shoes in seam sealer which is a little depressing for a shoe that retails at $180. I will say as a disclaimer that I got my pair of Evolv Generals for free as I somehow became a "grassroots athlete" by accident after sending a few emails. I would never have paid the $175 price tag on these things especially since I thought all they were going to be was another Astroman. This assumption was totally wrong, but more of that later.

Sizing: I find most evolv shoes to be very frustrating to actually get your foot into. For some reason they design their shoes with an INSANELY tight heel rand that makes it difficult to size your shoe properly. I personally enjoy a very snug fit for any kind of hard climbing be it sport, boulders, or gear. I went into my local climbing shop to figure out what size I needed to order (I know a total scumbag move and I appreciate Bob Culp at rock and resole letting me try on shoe after shoe even though I didn´t buy anything). The nice thing about Evolv is that they are trying to steer their brand to fit close to your normal street shoe size, thus preventing serious downsizing when trying to find the right fit. I wear a 10 in most street shoes and when I tried on the 10 in the Generals they fit great right away and I immediately knew this size was too large. When I downsized to a 9.5 I about broke my foot trying to get it into the model but it did finally go in. Perfect! When I went to go stand on some plastic footholds to try the edging power of the shoe I was surprised that what I felt under my foot was some stiff rubber that might actually perform on long, hard routes in a way that makes sense. I do not recommend bringing tight shoes straight to your project, especially if it is long and difficult, so before I took these things outside I soaked them in some hot water and let my fit sit in them for about an hour or so. This made my painfully tight shoes stretch to their normal size and I was good to go.

Performance: I got these shoes mainly for summer alpine rock routes at Mount Evans and Rocky Mountain National Park. I had been wanting to "level up" to the harder routes on the Diamond for sometime and figured Bright Star (IV 5.11d R) was a good season opener seeing as how most of the hardware had been replaced last season. Before I took these shoes up to the "Big D" I decided to bring them out sport climbing for a weekend in Rifle to warm the rubber up. I slipped them on for a try on the old Anti-Phil (5.13b) and to my surprise they performed just as well on the tiny limestone edges as my overly aggressive sport shoes. The edging platform is very stiff, much stiffer than the TC Pros, but with a softer more high quality rubber than the Ballet Golds allowing the climber to really stand on some small stuff without much effort. Flash forward to last weekend on the Diamond. Now I knew Bright Star was going to be a "real deal rock route" but damn did I underestimate that beast! My friend Peter and myself employ a system of climbing where the leader leads and then fixes a rope for the second to follow on micro traxion thereby eliminating the need for transitions between pitches as long as the leader leads in blocks. I had the fortune of leading the first, and most exciting block. My pitch breakdown was as follows: p1 5.11+ R, p2 5.11b pg, p3 5.11+R, and p4 5.11+ very R. If I was gonna survive this ordeal, which at a few times I wasn´t so sure that was going to happen, then worrying about my shoes sticking to the rock was not an option. Not only did the Generals hold any small edge despite the constant shaking of my elvis legs, but they inspired confidence in my movement no matter how far out I was from my last suspect placement. They performed equally well on thin faces and cracks but I could see thinner finger cracks being a weakness for this shoe, but hey that´s what the slippers are for.

Bottom Line: These shoes kick serious ass. Pretty sure I will never buy another pair of TC Pros again (blasphemy?!). The edging abilities of the General far surpass those of the TC Pro in my opinion making them a granite face climbers dream. I am excited to see how they will perform on desert sandstone once the weather cools down but am confident that they will be great for anything thin hands and larger. I do not anticipate having to glop a ton of seam sealer on these things like I did on my TC´s as the rubber around the toe on the Generals is stiff and has shown no signs of wear thus far. For those not inclined to foot binding torture I would recommend sizing true to your street size and I´m sure they will still provide a high performance shoe option, maybe just less so when the climbing gets really hard. Go and get yourself some!

I can't believe you sized DOWN in any Evolv shoe. I always have to size UP at least 1/2 and sometimes 1 whole size. 

For everyone who wants the TL;DR, just read the last paragraph.

The rest is...

Corey Flynn wrote:

I know crazy! In the aggros I had to go with my street size and even those were pretty tight. The generals seemed to stretch a good bit though so I think the downsize was justified.

I honestly think that's the key to the performance differences you saw. I, also, own a pair of Astromans and I didn't find the Generals to be that much different.

I recently bought a pair of TC Pros so we'll see how I like them.

I just got The Generals in my street shoe size..10 1/2.  I wear a 42.5 in TC Pros.  I wore The Generals in my hot tub before climbing the first time.  They were still too tight.  But then they molded to my foot after two days on rock.  Now they are by far the most comfortable shoes for hand and finger size cracks and also granite edging I have ever had.  And they seem very robust and durable too. But they are very stiff with no sensitivity and not too good at smearing.  Generals are still overall the greatest trad shoes.  I will never buy another pair of TC Pros.  Also note I can get a pro deal on 5.10 shoes...and I am still switching to Generals for general trad.

Adding a +1 to the overall performance and comfort of these shoes. I have probably put about 15-20 pitches in on them and I feel they outperform the TC pro (which before this I had 2 pairs that each were resoled many times). I also sized up which I thought was weird, but they are insanely comfortable. I noticed that the heel box is a little more roomy than my TCs, which is odd, but it hasn't seemed to affect they way I can edge or jam so its a non-issue at this point. I also noticed that they do well in smaller cracks than the TCs due to the more aggressive toe shape.

My only complaint with them, is that the high tops catch a lot of debris when climbing manky pitches. The high tops are just a bit higher than the TCs so it makes fishing sticks, pebbles, and pine needles out of there a bit more difficult with the shoe still on.

I am sold on these shoes for sure and will definitely buy another pair.

I've been a big fan of The Generals. My thoughts are that they really perform fairly similarly to the TCs, they just fit different sized feet better- a fact, for which my wide feet are extremely grateful!

After a little over 90 pitches on them in the past several months, some of the stitching is coming apart and I've almost worn through the laces on my left shoe, but I suppose that is to be expected with time and with the amount of large-hands to offwidth routes I've been doing lately. And it's pretty easy to buy some new laces (I also broke that left foot in May and had surgery, so the swelling has probably made the shoe a bit tighter than it would otherwise be).

All in all, I'll definitely buy another pair of these in a couple years or whenever this pair is decidedly shot.