Ron Hill Reverence Shoe Review

Every shoe is a compromise. You have to compromise with what feels right on your foot, and manufacturers have to decide what market they are aiming for and tweak the properties of the shoe accordingly. Ron Hill have released the Reverence aimed firmly as a mountain shoe, ‘designed and tested in the roughest and harshest terrain in the English Lake District’. Bold words, to be taken with perhaps a pinch of cynical salt except Ron Hill really did seek the design skills of none other than Harry Bolton, and not many people run faster than Harry in the Lakes. So did Ron Hill get it right and make a proper Fell Running shoe? In my opinion, yes – sort of.

My choice of shoe is limited by having wider feet, although I will take the pain of a slimmer shoe for a short race. There must be a lot of pencil-thin footed runners out there, given the number of ‘standard’ or precise fit shoes available. The Reverence  is designed with a True-Fit last: read that as great if you usually buy ‘wide foot’. So it’s just what I want, and my easy comparison is against everybody’s usual wide shoe of choice, the Inov8 X-Talon Ultra which has now evolved into the MudTalon Speed.

First things first – the elephant-foot in the room – is that enormous sole. The midsole is wide. I mean really wide. You can see why the shoe is one wet puddle under 300gms (295) compared to a more modest 275- 260 for the Inov8. Soaked wet through that weighed in at 429gm on my size 10, but because the material used in the X-Talon Ultra is more absorbent, that weighed in at a whopping 458gm.

The problem for me is that the wide midsole means the shoe upper doesn’t grip the arch of the foot snugly. Coupled with the lighter grip of the heel cup it gives the impression of not being connected to the foot in quite the same way Inov8s. It’s a longer sole, too: a good 2cm longer then the X-Talon Ultra for the same UK size 10.

Sounds terrible doesn’t it? But surprisingly it isn’t. Wet grass, mud and rocks are all gripped superbly by the rubber and you soon feel you can really let go and the shoes will keep up with you. As a bonus they are very quick on that final bit of tarmac that most races seem to have. 

I spent a long time analysing all the different terrains and how the shoes felt, but as I got tired and turned homewards I faced a steep, technical decent and found myself trusting the shoe to manage without me really thinking about it. You know when you are going steeply down and don’t feel you can push because the shoes might go out from under you? Didn’t happen with these; full confidence there.

I do think there are some areas that either need to be improved or, if not, be accepted that its not a 100% ‘mountain’ shoe. That mid-sole is brilliant for planting your feet firmly with grip when it’s mainly flat-ish, but can be unwieldy over rocky ground and very technical knobbles; dragging your foot sideways or even getting temporarily jammed in crevices. Maybe I can get used to that as it doesn’t happen a lot, I don’t know. Also that heel cup is loose, no other way to say it. Usually there would be a small lip at the achillies and I’d prefer that. The upshot is that you know the shoe is there all the time, it doesn’t blend in and become one with your foot, although when it grips this well that’s actually not a deal-breaker.

Honourable mentions go to how comfortable they are whilst retaining good ground feel, and also how the mud seems to fall off them: one puddle and they are clean. Although not original to Ron Hill (the MudTalons have the same) the lifted lip on the heel is a boon for down-hills and general heel-strikers alike.

So would I recommend them? Despite my nit-picking, if you have wide feet you already have limited choice so buy them without hesitation. Don’t even think about it. If you don’t have wide feet, try them in the shop in case you need to go down a half size, then still buy them. I understand that the next version is already in the design phases, but no need to wait, this is a good shoe already. Anyway, you will have worn these out by the time the next version comes around, won’t you?

Fell Running 4.5/5, generalised over every type of mixed terrain and distance (no-one wants an excel spreadsheet, do they?)

I’d give the X-Talon 4/5. I haven’t tried the MudTalon on every terrain yet but it’s pretty good so far.

Fell Racing – it depends. On most races they will be very good, particularly on tracks, trails and obvious paths, if a little heavy. But in races that have steep-angled traverses, are very rocky or have rough descent off-path I might be tempted back to the Terrex and the slimmer, lighter sole, despite how they crush my feet. I suppose that’s the decision Ron Hill had to make: sell lots of an excellent all-round off-road shoe, or fewer of a full-on specifically Fell shoe. As a compromise I think they did pretty well.