Teva Riva Leather Mid

What's Are They For?

Teva is best known for its excellent rafting sandals - something the company pretty much invented - but also produces shoes and lightweight boots using some of the same technology for the chassis. The Riva Mid is a lightweight walking boot designed to be used pretty much anywhere below the snowline.

The Techy Bits

The Riva borrows Shoc Pad technology from its rafting sandal cousins. It's a blended polyurethane/EVA unit in the heel cup, which Teva says: 'evenly transfers the energy of impact throughout the footbed and away from the heel. This energy return actually provides greater spring with each forefoot push-off.'

You can actually see the Shoc Pad on the outside of the heel section of the sole unit by the way.

Teva is also one of the relatively small number of footwear brands using eVent waterproof and breathable liners. In clothing, we reckon eVent is appreciably more breathable than Gore-Tex, so we were interested in seeing whether we could also detect a difference in footwear.

How They Performed

Footwear is all about fit, so it's worth being aware that the Riva is snug for the nominal size and quite a narrow fit, so well worth a look if you find your feet swimming around in other brands.

They feel comfortable straight out of the box and the smooth leather lining with soft foam ankle padding gives a nice, luxurious feel. The lacing system looks basic, but works very slickly making it easy to get a decent forefoot fit.

We found ankle mobility using the Rivas was good and they had a nice, light-ish feel on the foot. They're not particularly well cushioned underfoot, which doesn't matter on softer, grassy terrain, but makes them slightly harsh underfoot on harder ground and on rocks in particular.

The sole unit - once you remove the thick foam footbed - does seem to be quite thin and while it has decent lateral stiffness and putting your foot close to the ground does definitely seem to help with precision and balance, the pay-off seems to be lack of shock absorption. That's not a big factor with sandals, but with hiking boots it's more of a consideration.

Finally, the eVent liner seems to work well, keeping our feet dry and happy. We haven't used them in really warm conditions though, so it's hard to comment on breathability in those conditions.

Initial Verdict

Light and attractive, nicely made hiking mid that's also reasonably light and sized quite snugly. Lack of underfoot cushioning and, in particular, a thin sole unit in the forefoot area makes them best suited for lower level walks on soft surfaces in our opinion.

Buy if you want an attractive, lightweight walking boot for use mainly on softer ground like grassy paths. Not so good on rockier terrain.