Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Luna Sandals MONO - SNEAK PEAK & FIRST REVIEW!

For the past four years I have had the privilege of product testing some of the upcoming running sandals from the Luna Sandals company in Seattle, WA.  The Monkeys at Luna are seemingly well fed as they are exceedingly polite and helpful in responding to my requests, comments, and concerns.

I was sent the NEW (released to the public today!) MONOs which are rumored to be the ULTIMATE do-everything minimalist sandals; great for hiking, running, hanging out, strolling around, around the house, etc.

Here are my ramblings...

Out of the box...

The MONOs have a handmade in the good 'ol USA look, feel, smell and taste - yes, I bit them.  They are slightly reminiscent of Chacos and of SOURCE sandals - that is a huge compliment.  There is conscious branding by Luna with a sewn in Luna tag and malleted Luna stamp. The seemingly painstaking process of hand-sewing/handcrafting each pair of Lunas by the Monkey manufacturing team in Seattle is astounding.  I mean, there is a piece of MGT (Monkey Grip Technology) rubber sewn onto the bottom side of the lateral strap-  its purpose, just like its big brother footbed - to reduce slippage in wet/muddy conditions.  Luna has also reinvented the wheel with their new lacing system with the introduction of a "backpack buckle" type closure called ATS (All Terrain Strapping) laces so that you can shift, adjust, tighten and loosen on-the-fly.  Only like-minded runners who are conscious of every detail would or could care about this sort of minutiae and be able to take 3,500 year old sandal technology concepts, keep them true to their roots and upgrade them to today's standards.  Again, combating slippage under wet conditions, an issue I had with the Original Lunas and others with Shell Cordovan leather footbeds, Luna has started using MGT to keep proprioception real and your feet on course.

[As a side note, on my other Luna sandals with leather footbeds, I treat them every few months with a generous coating of Obenauf's Heavy Duty LP - an all vegetable and honey bee propolis waterproofing product made by a wild-land firefighter for use on leather smoke-jumper boots, saddles, and to revive and rejuvenate leather products.  This has allowed me to have pretty minimal slippage during rain and snow up to about 16mi at which point the leather does take on water and becomes slick.  Perhaps if I treated them with Obenauf's immediately before running during inclimate weather there would have been no issue - have you noticed yet that I have a thing for boots and sandals!]





Listen up...The guys and gals at Luna Sandals have done it again in this minimal market which isn't so minimal a market anymore!

No comments:

Post a Comment