Buckling your feet into these shoes gives that feeling of hopping into the passenger seat of your parent’s old 90s Volvo, solid and very secure.

The Terraduro is a new-school shoe aimed squarely at the feet of the enduro/all-mountain rider, or simply someone who typically finds themselves kicking the ground foot-dragging through turns, climbing rocks to scout sick lines or just pushing their bikes back up the hill to hit a line again.

There is no carbon material to make the sole stiffer than a frozen house brick, or any fancy lightweight materials used in space exploration, just a classic styled shoe with a few key points of difference. It’s also quite subtle and traditional in its appearance, aside from the deep orange colour they don’t look too dissimilar to your traditional mountain bike shoe.

At first these shoes felt quite bulky when on, but by the second and third ride the upper material around the shoe softened up nicely conforming to the foot with a more supple feel. The overall fit is slightly more relaxed than your classic cross country shoe, but not as roomy as the Specialized 2FO or Five Ten Impact XVI. The Giros will please riders with slightly narrower feet.

The buckle is an especially effective item, cranking up the plastic clip is very easy and pulls a good amount of tension around the whole foot rather than squashing it straight downwards. And the velcro straps pull tension across a metal clip, ensuring that mud doesn’t clog up their range of movement too much.

The rubber out sole is really quite soft and tacky, and branded proudly with the Vibram badge of approval. The shoes stick to rock really very well, but with a few areas on either side of the cleat already showing wear a couple months in, we might have to accept increased wear as a trade for great grip. But saying that, we do spend a lot of time in riding shoes, and plenty of time off the bike with a camera in hand, probably more than most.

We used the shoes with Shimano XTR Trail pedals, which have a bigger contact area around the pedal to support the shoe. Initial rides found us restricted in our pedal float, it took a couple rides for the shoes and pedals to fit best and the rubber sole wasn’t making too much contact with the pedal cage.

What we liked most about the sole was the way the toe area curled up, great for pushing your bike in. Your foot rolls forward on the sole as you walk, rather than bending the front of the shoe up and cramping down on your toes.

On the bike the shoes certainly do feel super sturdy and secure, the toe area provides loads of protection via a stiffer section of material up front, defending you from debris impacts. They do feel heavy when wet though, the soft mesh material under the tongue and around the inner heel area soaks up sweat and water from the trail, and doesn’t dry out as fast as some lighter cross country shoes or the Specialized 2FO shoes. Not our pick for wet weather riding as such.

Sole stiffness is pretty good, too. You can feel the sole bend around the pedal slightly when really giving it some, they aren’t trying to be an XC racer shoe, so what you do gain from a little give is a good feel of what’s going on down there, not that isolated feeling you get with super-stiff soled shoes.

So, if you’re like us and appreciate a shoe that isn’t so stiff that you lose feeling of the bike below, you spend a bit of time dragging feet through turns and clambering around the bush looking for sick #enduro trails, these tangelo Terraduros are a killer option. Bolt some on and see for yourself.