Axo Street Boots

AXO Street Boots

EVALUATION

Anybody who has bought boots lately knows that prices are sky high, so high that it is more important than ever that new boots last a long time. AXO street boots, made in Italy and imported by Moto-X Fox, are expensive at $105, but a pair worn by one of our riders is holding up well after a year’s worth of hard service.

The boots are black, about 15 in. high, with nylon zippers up the instep side. An external leather weather flap covers each zipper and is secured by a strip of Velcro. Another zipper flap, without Velcro, is located inside the boot. Insides are lined with white glove leather and foam padding is installed between the outside leather and the lining at several locations, including over the outside ankle bone, at the back of the foot, and over the top of the foot where it usually contacts a shift lever. Extra thicknesses of leather reinforce the boot at shift lever contact points and at the heel.

The padding up the rear of the boot is quilted between the heel reinforcing patch to a point about 3.5 in. short of the top of the boot. From there, the leather is slit into strips and intermeshed with elastic to form an expanding section which is covered by a wide, twin-buckle adjustable flap.

A small change pocket is located at the top of each boot, on the outside of the leg, and has a single snap on its flap.

The one-piece, rubber-composition sole with stepped heel has shallow, wavy treads and is bonded to the boot base.

The first thing a rider notices when exposed to the AXO boots is that the leather is soft, but the boots feel stiff anyway. They stay that way for one or two weeks, until the thick leather boot base sole is broken in, and then the boots feel as soft as the leather they’re made of.

But although the leather feels soft and comfortable, it doesn’t lose its shape and the toe sections don't collapse. In our experience, the zippers have never snagged, lost their pulls or broken apart. There’s still plenty of tread on the soles, although some wear is showing in the ball-of-the-^ foot area of the sole.

It's apparent from the design of these boots that they were meant to be worn over pants legs or leathers. That’s not a style that has caught on in the U.S. and we wore ours under our pants legs with the adjustable buckles set at their tightest position, which still wasn’t close to making contact with our rider’s calves. Maybe he just has skinny calves.

At any rate, because the boots didn’t hug the rider’s calves, they didn’t fit very well inside straight-leg blue jeans, causing the jeans to bunch and ride up the boot. It’s worth noting that the rider wearing the boots changed voluntarily to, boot-cut jeans instead of changing boots.

If the boots were worn over the pants leg, they would fit fine over straight-leg jeans, and the little change pockets could come in handy at toll booths.

Some of this must be put in perspective. There are boots. . .and there are motorcycle boots. One of our men wears custom cowboy boots, $300 a pair and he expects them to last forever. Another man bought a $35 pair of work boots three years ago and he says they’re still in good shape. Cowboy, engineer and work boots don't have zippers or extra padding for gear levers, etc. And in our* experience boots with padding and zippers and snug fit are more trouble than boots that don’t have these features.

With that on the record, we can say our man liked the AXO boots and had no trouble with them while other bike boots we’ve seen have broken zippers, lost zipper pulls and so forth.

AXO street boots are available at motorcycle stores or direct from Moto-X Fox, 520 McGlincy Fane, Campbell, Calif. 95008, in full sizes 7 through 13 inclusive. Œ