I saw the Saguaro shoes pop up in my daily internet crawl, not really sure how I ended up with them being offered to me. I got a feeling it was because I was looking at wild swimming at the time, as they are often advertised as swim shoes along with barefoot shoes.
Since I was looking at getting something simple and light to wear while pottering about instead of my normal hiking boots. These looked good at £25 back 7-8 years ago.
Straight away I liked them them, light and flexible and comfortable. Easy to put on and you soon forgot you were wearing them. Though still a learning curve in how to walk in shoes with a rise and a thin sole.
These were my entry into the barefoot world. I used them for everything around the house, walkies and even hikes. I enjoyed them so much that I got a second pair soon after. Mainly because living in northern England they got wet very often and I would like to have dry pair to put on.
Since the sole was only a few millimetres thick the didn't feel too warm come winter, though thick socks and walking briskly helped. The grip was great too always felt secure, no matter what I walked on.
The soles stared to show wear after 6 months and at 9 month I was thinking about how to prolonge the lifespan of these shoes. As the fabric was still intact but the soles in places were getting rather thin. I found some 1mm thick red Louis Betoun soles that I glued on, I know fabulously fashionable I was.
This extended the soles life by another 6 months, but didn't help on the grip as all the thread were worn away on the ball of feet and the heels.
I got about 2.5 years of life out of these shoes, not too bad considering that I wore them everyday, did at least 3-4 miles just with walkies on tarmac, concrete and gravel a day, who knows how much more with all the rest.
Then last year I wanted to get a new pair as my pair of Freet Pace had worn out. I then picked a pair of Saguaro's trail running shoes, which looked good on paper, well the screen.
They were like the two previous pair comfy light and flexible to use. I wore the both for walking around in, to the shops, walkies etc, and for trail running. They had a brilliant grip and fit my feet very well, they were a joy to use.
But after one run I had a hole in the inside of the shoe. I only found out that evening when I took my shoes and socks off and noticed the blood, right on the arch of my foot. Didn't feel a thing, but something cut both my shoe and my foot.
After only a few days more of running in these, the fabric started to rip in more places. Since I'm a member of The Green Runners I decided I needed to fix this, ordered a repair kit from Pair ups and followed the instructions.
Sadly the outer fabric of these shoes is more like stocking material so very thin and the rips were very close to where it was glued to the sole.
So my DIY repair failed rather fast, even before the next run. So within two months my shoes had more patches and rips which made them feel like the sole would suddenly come off.
I don't know why these were so weak compared to the first two pairs. Sadly, I often see this, a company have great success with a product, they then try to upgrade said product with "new, better and shinier" (read cheaper) materials and version 2 just fails to do what version 1 did. Sadly this "upgrade" also means that the shoes are now more expensive, they are now clocking in at £45.
That said I'm glad that Saguaro have started to make their shoes a bit more neutral and not so funky with their colour scheme. Sometimes it's good to have something that doesn't "scream" with their colours.
I got a pair of the Saguaro "minimalist" (I think they are called Wish I) in blue to be my everyday wearing shoes, so that I don't wear down my VIVO Primus Trail or VIVO Tracker Forest ESC too fast. They are very comfortable and light like all the other barefoot shoes. So far they have lasted about a month and I got no sign of wear on them, so that's good.
