I’ve been a big fan of Brooks Cascadia trail shoes ever since I got into the sport. I’ve owned a pair of 7s, 8s and 9s and done 1000 miles of rough trails in each pair before retiring them, and even then they still had life left in them. Needless to say I was pleased, so when 10s were released in the Spring, I simply ordered a pair without even thinking about it.
So it came as a bit of shock that after running the Marlborough Downs Challenge, not only did I get the most horrendous blisters, but small tears started to appear on the front of the shoes (it was hardly challenging terrain either). Over the next couple of weeks the tears got worse and worse. I started to notice that other people on the Social Media were experiencing similar problems as well, so I contacted Brooks customer support.
I very promptly received a reply from a very helpful customer support agent who explained:
We realise that our Cascadia 10 model is not as durable as the 9 and has inherent weak point in the upper between the two areas of the 3d fit print material which is designed to give structure of the shoe without utilising stitching. In most cases the problem does not transpire into a full rip but I can see from the pictures you have provided yours have fallen victim to this.
We have rectified this with an improvement on our Cascadia 11 shoe which will be available from January 2016.
Not only that, once I’d supplied proof of purchase information, they were perfectly happy to send me a new pair. I’m also happy to say that since then I’ve done another 300km in the new pair and there’s barely a scratch.
I wish more companies would treat their loyal customers as well as this.
