Five Ten Guide Tennie Canvas Review
Five Ten Guide Tennie Canvas Review
OK, so I’m one of those Boulder-climber-dudes who always wear approach shoes, so sue me. It’s not motivated by affectation or some vainglorious public proclamation of my allegiance to the vertical tribe, but simple practicality: I’m usually either out climbing, scrambling around looking for new routes, or taking walks with my family or hound dog, and sticky-soled approach shoes do all these things well. It’s just my default mode, and I often forget that such a thing as running shoes exists, until we’re meandering up some third-class slab and my climbing partner, wearing regular, old tennies, says, “Man, I wish I’d worn approach shoes today…”
Over the years, I’ve tested and worn out untold pairs of approach shoes, and I’m always a little nostalgic when a beloved pair needs to be retired. Depending on your local terrain, approach shoes can often get a little “flat”—pounded out and unsupportive—before things like holes in the uppers or delamination occur. But different shoes wear out for different reasons, in different seasons.
I’ve been test-driving the Five Ten Guide Tennie Canvas ($109.95, ) since April, and wanted to share my thoughts. The shoes take the classic Guide Tennie and swap in a lighter-weight, more breathable canvas for the leather upper; they also feature a dot-matrix Stealth® C4™ Dotty tread. I’ve used them for approaching/scrambling/rigging/bolting in the Flatirons—for steep, rocky hiking and on inclined slabs up to about 5.8; in the steep, talusy, slidey gullies of Boulder Canyon; and on pavement and gravel trails in the grasslands out around my house. I also use them for yard work—some tool-work with shovels, picks, and so on and the usual manicuring tasks. So: I’ve put them through their paces. I’ve boiled my thoughts down to the pros and cons:
PROS:
•Very lightweight: Bigger, beefier approach shoes can feel clunky, which IMO is a little hairy when scrambling. I like fleetness, sensitivity, and feel. The Guide Tennie Canvas is a great, low-profile, featherweight shoe that lets you sense the rock superbly underfoot.
•Cool, as in “not sweaty”: The canvas uppers have been very breathable, which was great all through the summer on hot hikes up into the Flatirons. You don’t slosh around inside the footbed or get heat/sweat blisters.
•Comfortable: The shoes felt like a nice, friendly pair of old slippers out of the box, with basically no break-in period. I’m sure the softness of the canvas upper contributes to this—you don’t have to break in any leather to get them to conform. The fit is excellent and has remained so over seven months.
•Sticky: The Stealth rubber is, predictably, very grippy even in colder temperatures, and the dot-matrix tread helped with surface friction: spreading the shoes out on smeary, slabby foot placements. Even as the dots have ground down, the shoes have remained reliably sticky, especially on smears. (See photo below: soles hanging in after seven months of punishing use.)
•Durable: After seven months of pounding, the shoes are hanging in structurally, with little reduction in support. On the flip side, they’re not a hyper-built-up, shock-absorbing shoe to begin with, but more minimalist and streamlined, so there wasn’t much cushioning to hammer.
CONS:
•Fraying: The canvas is bantamweight, but it’s also prone to minor fraying—I saw fraying around the cuffs within the first month, but it hasn’t really gotten worse or affected fit or performance. (See photo below: some fraying of the canvas cuffs on the sides of the shoes.)
•Rolly edging: Because these shoes aren’t stiff, they smeared much better than they edged, and thus tended to roll a little on smaller edges. If your intended use was guiding multipitch moderate climbs that require more edging than smearing, you might want a stiffer, more precise, boot-like approach shoe. Hard to say: for me, I don’t like to climb much harder than 5.9 in approach shoes anyway, and most sub-5.9 terrain has plenty of big, smeary footholds that the Guide Tennie Canvas worked perfectly on. The edging blind spot might also stem from the rounded, semi-symmetrical toebox—any upgrade in comfort spells a slight downgrade in precision, same as with rock shoes.
•Shock absorption: The Guide Tennie Canvas are, again, amazing scramblers/moderate-fifth-class shoes, but if the bulk of your approaching consists of hiking, you might not find the footbed and midsole cushioning you’re looking for.
***
Every shoe, even an approach shoe, has its specific strengths, and I would highly recommend the Five Ten Guide Tennie Canvas to add to your quiver. This is a stellar shoe for approaching/descending multipitch routes (light, and clips off to your harness without adding much weight), scrambling, short, technical approaches, and all-around use. The slate/steel-grey hue makes them stylish and understated for wearing around town as well. A very reliable, grippy, comfortable, breathable, and long-lasting approach shoe: 8.5/10.
Notes