Got some blue AVE skate lows late last spring which I thought were going to become my shoe of choice, they were classic, low profile, and just fine looking (I was a "vans man" for the longest). They started to show signs even in the first week when I was just chillin in them. They literally fell apart second session...the sole just detached. This broke my heart and drove into the arms of nike, converse, and eventually even DC which I never thought would happen again because they had become so...well you know. Fittingly enough the AVE ones were that last dc's I owned way back when, but I digress. The mike taylors were the best shoes I skated all year. Every time I paused to admire their construction I realized I was likely done with vans.
Flash forward through a summer, fall, and winter of putting my feet in anything that gripped wood and looked supple and I found myself (not without trepidation) buying some era pros. Perhaps for nostalgia's sake or succumbing to false hope but in either case readying myself for disappointment. The first few ollies felt like being reunited and I stopped caring if this was only going to last a few days because it felt so good.
Well it's been a couple weeks and things are holding up pretty well actually, and I feel like all is as it should be and even have some Natives on deck!
The moral of this story is that sometimes you will find yourself tied into something defective and life just sucks. But you can't let the defective ones ruin all the other ones for you even if they look just like the ones that were garbage.
Waffle grip fo life!