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I love functional footwear, especially boots. The thing with boots is, they’re often a bit of a chore to get on and they’re often heavy. Not all boots lace up, of course. So pull-on boots are easy-on, easy off. The tradeoff with a pull-on boot is you usually lose some measure of support or comfort. Especially if the boot is heavy. So the ideal — especially if the boot’s purpose is more tactical than industrial — is some really good combination of easy-on, supportive, comfortable, and light in weight. Boots meeting this criteria include the Blackhawk! Ultralight Side Zip Boot you see here.
On foot, one of these Blackhawk! boots certainly feels lighter than most other boots. In fact, on a digital scale, one Blackhawk! boot weighs in at 1.58 lbs. By contrast, one Rocky Ironclad — a waterproof leather, steel-toed Wellington work boot you’ll hear about later — weighs 2.64 lbs. They’re two different boot styles, to be sure, but the point is as far as weight is concerned, as much as two pounds overall can be eliminated from your load.
Beyond their light weight, these Blackhawk! boots feature a side zipper, allowing them to be easy-on, easy-off but, when zipped up, offering full, firm support from its lacing system. The zippers are YKK, plenty robust, and probably my favorite feature. When you need it, the lacing system offers brilliant means of tightening and loosing — a flip-up catch to replace having to actually tie them — and a pocket in the tongue in which the extra lace length hides.
As for support and comfort, these boots provided stability and an easy ride during long hikes, construction and landscaping activities, and more. I wore them all day (8 to 10 hours) on multiple occasions and never tired or chafed and enjoyed decent breathability.
Blackhawk! Ultralight Side Zip Boots retail for $178.95 and come in suede leather / desert tan and full grain leather / black.
— Mark Kakkuri
