La Sportiva Mistral Climbing Shoe Review


The Mistral is a new shoe from La Sportiva dedicated to climbers in the evolution phase. Built for comfort and versatility the shoe is a great all rounder, a comfortable indoor training shoe to a great multi pitch trad machine. With added environmentally friendly additions the Upper and insole are made entirely without the use of animal products and the sole is made from recycled Vibram rubber offcuts from the La Sportiva factory in Italy. 

Advantages

After trying the Mistral in store I was very eager to test it out and overall it has not disappointed. The shoe performed great in a few key categories which La Sportiva set out to achieve.

Firstly, the Mistral is an awesome comfortable indoor training shoe from cutting laps on the lead wall at Blackburn (Urban Climb) to endurance circuits at Burnley Walls the shoe has great grip and edging power. I tend to grab the shoe over others to warm up and warm down or if I’m wanting to have a chill endurance session and don’t want to crush my feet in my La Sportiva Solution Comps or Katana Laces.


The vegan micro suede upper is also very comfortable! Although I’m indifferent about the use of animal or vegan products in my day to day life, I’m a big fan of the upper in these shoes. They are soft, plush and hugs your foot amazingly, whilst I’ve noticed no durability differences thus far between my suede La Sportiva shoes but only time will tell on this aspect. 

I’ve taken this shoe up many moderate multi-pitches at Mount Arapiles and it performed very well in the comfort and performance category on moderate routes. The Mistral’s flat low asymmetric design makes them great on the slab routes on the watchtower faces. 

The Mistral is an excellent crack climbing shoe. The added rubber toe cap makes them stick great when torqued into cracks and on the thinner sizes they do an amazing job at protecting the big toe from getting completely cranked. Big fan for crack climbing!


Disadvantages

There is really no do-it-all shoe and the Mistral is no exception. The biggest con to the Mistral is what you’d expect with most flat shoes, the raw edging power on tiny footholds is not comparable to other stiff but downturned shoes like the La Sportiva Katana Lace, Miura or Otaki but it is also far more comfortable than these shoes. But if you plan on standing on little credit card sized footholds I’d maybe choose from the shoes above instead.


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