Aldens Adventures
Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 6:23 pm
Hi everybody! I've been a lurker on this forum for a while, but I guess now's as good a time as any to tell you about the experiences I've had with my Alden 405s.
During May of this year I decided to go ahead and plunk down the 250 to buy myself a pair (this was during pumpkin-orange leather era, before the recent leather swap). I didn't regret it, at least for the first couple months - they were beautiful boots, and once broken in fairly comfortable too! I did, of course, give them a week-long soak in Pecard's before hitting the street in them.
I wore them pretty much everywhere. As I was in college mode during the summer, taking classes and all that, I didn't have the opportunity to go on any rigorous adventures with them, so about the only wore they incurred was the around-town type. Nothing too harsh.
As I continued to wear them, though, I noticed small rips in the leather. Not just scuffs, but actual rips where the waxy layer of the leather would become torn and kind of dangle from the body of the actual boot. They were fairly small, and only in two areas: one on the toe of the left shoe and one near some of the stitching on the right. To my knowledge, I hadn't done anything abusive to the boots; I had just been wearing them around campus. Regardless, it didn't bother me too much at the time, and I continued to wear them.
One evening in late August, however, I encountered some major problems. I was sitting cross-legged on concrete, and so naturally the heel area of the boot was in contact with the ground. I had done this sort of thing many times without damaging my footwear, so naturally I thought the Aldens, being such a well constructed boot, would come out with little more than a few character-imparting scuffs. To my dismay, however, both my boots ended up looking like this:
<img src = "http://image.pbase.com/u32/wisefrog/lar ... .boots.jpg">
Needless to say, I was a little upset. I hadn't been purposefully grating the shoes against the concrete! I'd only done the normal amount of shifting around that a person would do while sitting in such a position. I e-mailed Alden a few days later and they told me to ship them back so they could take a look at the leather. I did so, and two weeks later I found a brand new pair of 405s in my mail box.
Now that's professional.
But the story doesn't end here!
My original pair of 405s had been, if I remember correctly (and I'm not sure I do!) a 12C. They sent me back a 10D. So excited was I to get my Alden's back that I didn't consider that my replacements were too small. The 12Cs were actually probably a little too long in the toe for me, so I thought that perhaps the 10s would be a better fit and decided to wear them.
I'm kind of regretting this now. I'm able to wiggle my toes fine, but there's a little pinch on my small toe in the left boot. I'm thinking it probably would have been more prudent to send back the replacements for an 11, but ah well...chalk it up to gear lust, I guess. With each passing day, the boots are a little more broken in and a little more comfortable, so I think that in the end everything will be okay. I'm not getting blisters or anything like that either, which is of course good. The first pair I had actually gave me a cutting, limp-inducing pain in my right ankle for the first couple weeks. Felt like someone had knifed a tendon or something...very odd. Maybe I did indeed get an a more comfortable pair this time!
In any case, that's my Alden story.
During May of this year I decided to go ahead and plunk down the 250 to buy myself a pair (this was during pumpkin-orange leather era, before the recent leather swap). I didn't regret it, at least for the first couple months - they were beautiful boots, and once broken in fairly comfortable too! I did, of course, give them a week-long soak in Pecard's before hitting the street in them.
I wore them pretty much everywhere. As I was in college mode during the summer, taking classes and all that, I didn't have the opportunity to go on any rigorous adventures with them, so about the only wore they incurred was the around-town type. Nothing too harsh.
As I continued to wear them, though, I noticed small rips in the leather. Not just scuffs, but actual rips where the waxy layer of the leather would become torn and kind of dangle from the body of the actual boot. They were fairly small, and only in two areas: one on the toe of the left shoe and one near some of the stitching on the right. To my knowledge, I hadn't done anything abusive to the boots; I had just been wearing them around campus. Regardless, it didn't bother me too much at the time, and I continued to wear them.
One evening in late August, however, I encountered some major problems. I was sitting cross-legged on concrete, and so naturally the heel area of the boot was in contact with the ground. I had done this sort of thing many times without damaging my footwear, so naturally I thought the Aldens, being such a well constructed boot, would come out with little more than a few character-imparting scuffs. To my dismay, however, both my boots ended up looking like this:
<img src = "http://image.pbase.com/u32/wisefrog/lar ... .boots.jpg">
Needless to say, I was a little upset. I hadn't been purposefully grating the shoes against the concrete! I'd only done the normal amount of shifting around that a person would do while sitting in such a position. I e-mailed Alden a few days later and they told me to ship them back so they could take a look at the leather. I did so, and two weeks later I found a brand new pair of 405s in my mail box.
Now that's professional.
But the story doesn't end here!
My original pair of 405s had been, if I remember correctly (and I'm not sure I do!) a 12C. They sent me back a 10D. So excited was I to get my Alden's back that I didn't consider that my replacements were too small. The 12Cs were actually probably a little too long in the toe for me, so I thought that perhaps the 10s would be a better fit and decided to wear them.
I'm kind of regretting this now. I'm able to wiggle my toes fine, but there's a little pinch on my small toe in the left boot. I'm thinking it probably would have been more prudent to send back the replacements for an 11, but ah well...chalk it up to gear lust, I guess. With each passing day, the boots are a little more broken in and a little more comfortable, so I think that in the end everything will be okay. I'm not getting blisters or anything like that either, which is of course good. The first pair I had actually gave me a cutting, limp-inducing pain in my right ankle for the first couple weeks. Felt like someone had knifed a tendon or something...very odd. Maybe I did indeed get an a more comfortable pair this time!
In any case, that's my Alden story.
Seriously though, your pic isn't showing up. But that's a good story, and good luck with the left little toe!
You all will have to copy and paste the URL into your browser, I guess.