Evolv X1 Review

These shoes are of the softer variety, geared towards gym rats and pebble wrestlers who need sensitivity and edging performance and are less likely to spend 45 minutes on some cotton mouth inducing runout slab. They are stiffer and more versatile than the bank account leveling $200 Scarpa Drago, but don't have the support and crack climbing abilities as some of our favorite sporty shoes, the La Sportiva Solutions.

Performance Comparison

These shoes are on the soft side, but they provide enough edging power for the technical Green Wall Center.

Edging

Sized correctly, the X1s edge well, but the rubber is extremely soft and sticky, and some of our testers reported they felt the edge "rolled", a phenomenon we've experienced on some other Evolv models like the Shamans and the old Optimus Primes. They edge better than the super soft Scarpa Dragos and the clunky Black Diamond Momentums, but they can't touch the La Sportiva Genius, Solution or the Kataki when it comes to edging performance.

Some of our testers felt that these shoes are too soft for difficult edging routes and prefer a stiffer shoe like the La Sportiva Solution.

Crack Climbing

These shoes fit narrower than the La Sportiva Kataki, our Top Pick for Crack Climbing, so climbing hand size cracks in the X1 is a no-go, especially for wider footed climbers. The toe profile is delightfully low, allowing us to weasel into a few green camalot sized cracks and flares sometimes encountered in sport climbing. If you've got narrow feet and you downsize these shoes down too tight, you might get away with a few full pitches of crack climbing, but we don't recommend it.

Pockets

Pocket climbing comes down to a shoe's edging ability combined with the shape of the toe. A pointy toe can fit into smaller, shallower pockets than some comfortable, symmetrical shaped shoe you'd use to climb El Cap. The X1 isn't too shabby in the pockets, but we preferred climbing pockets in a stiffer, better edging shoe like the Butora Acro, or the La Sportiva Solution.

Heel hooking is no problem thanks to the X1's tight heel cup.

Sensitivity

These soft shoes are very sensitive, adding some versatility to such an aggressive shoe. If you haven't sized them painfully tight, you won't be totally out of luck when the climbing gets low angle and techy. They aren't as sensitive as the mega soft Scarpa Dragos, but we prefer a little more support for all the granite climbing in our Eastern Sierra testing zone. The Trax SAS rubber is super soft and sticking. Curiously, all the cat hair in our lead tester's house stuck to 4.2mm of rubber on the bottom of these shoes. We've never seen anything thing like this with climbing rubber.

Enjoying another lap in the X1s during some primo spring conditions.

Comfort

Evolv's sizing is pretty wonky. Our lead tester is 9.5 street size, and he had to size up to 10.5 before he could even wrestle his foot into the X1s. They're low volume, so if you've got high arches, getting these things on is going to be a bit of fight even if you've sized them too big for performance edging. So, low volume, narrow feet will feel the most comfortable in these shoes.

Our testers with high volume feet found these shoes very difficult to put on.

Best Application

These shoes are a good choice for bouldering and training. They are relatively inexpensive, and you can really log some miles in the gym while saving your more expensive shoes for sending where it matters. They are too soft for enduro slab-a-neering, but boulderers will appreciate their ability to squish onto micro holds. If you're a young buck and your feet seem to be growing faster than you can save up for a new pair of shoes, the X1s perform well, and you might have better luck shaking $140 out of your parents than 200 hundo for a pair of Genius.

The X1s are a pretty good value.

Value

At $140, these shoes are $15 less than the Best Buy award-winning Butora Acro. We've used the Acros extensively, and feel that their superior comfort and performance is worth more than an additional 15 bones, and it remains the Best Buy. However, the X1 is a high quality, well-constructed shoe with the aggressive shape all the kids are into these days, and costs $40-$60 less than similar offerings from Sportiva, Scarpa, and Five Ten.

Ready for hours of training in the gym.

Conclusion

We're happy to see climbing shoe manufacturers trying to increase performance without raising the price. We hope to see more shoes like the X1. These are great for gym climbing, and are a huge step up from cheap, entry-level climbing shoes like the Evolv Defy and the Black Diamond Momentum.