Salming Viper 2.0 Review

I recently bought a new pair of squash shoes from Amazon Japan, but unfortunately they won't allow me to post a review in English, and I certainly couldn't do it in Japanese.  I tried Google Translate for fun, but realised there would be a problem when "squash" was translated to the Japanese for "pumpkin"...

I've been wearing various versions of the adidas Stabil since 2001 and have loved most of them.  The Stabil 7 in particular was a brilliant shoe. The last one I tried was the Stabil 10 which was OK, but I thought it was lacking something.  Salming have become the most popular shoes with the university crowd at my club, and are quite visible on the pro scene now as well, so I thought I would give them a try.

So anyway, here is a picture of my shoes, and the review that I wrote for Amazon Japan, although I have amended it for my blog.  If anyone does read this and has any questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them.

Really Disappointing

At ¥15300 including delivery, these are the most expensive shoes by some distance that I have ever bought for squash, and I sincerely wish I hadn't. I've been wearing them for a month to give them a fair run, and am not impressed.

In fairness the soles are excellent and give terrific grip on court. Oh, and I like the colour...

The insoles provided offer all the protection and impact absorption of a two-day-old crepe. So... spent another ¥1700 on a new set of insoles, which haven't solved the problem. The balls of my feet haven't hurt so much since I stopped wearing the old Prince NFSII about fifteen years ago. The root of the problem, I believe, is the lack of support provided by the very soft construction of the upper. The shoe stops on the floor, but my foot continues to move inside the shoe.

I should point out that I take a 27.5cm in the adidas Stabil, but having seen some Salming shoes at my club thought the sizes looked big, so ordered 27.0cm. With the inadequate insoles provided, they were in fact too big, but the thicker insoles I bought have made the fit much better.

Ah, so are the shoes too big and my feet too narrow causing the slip sliding inside the shoes? Nope... another minus is that the laces are really too short to cope with the width of my feet - the shoes fit, but cue another ¥300 to buy longer laces.

Terribly expensive experiment, which I shall not be repeating.  Come on adidas!  It's time for another classic Stabil.