For his first column at Borderlands, Inky turns his attention to the Satisfy theROCKER, one of the most talked-about and least understood trail shoes of the past year.
There’s a shoe sat on my shelf right now next to a pair of norda 001s. That should tell you everything you need to know about where it sits in my world.
TheROCKER trail running shoe. You probably forgot it existed. Or maybe you never knew it did. Either way, here we are.
I’m not gonna tell you all it’s the best trail shoe on the market. It’s not. The grip isn’t great. It’s not the lightest thing you’ll ever put on your foot. It’s not gonna give you 5% extra bounce or whatever the spec sheet crowd are obsessing over this season.
If that’s what you’re after, Adidas make an Agravic Speed 2. Go buy that. Seriously. This isn’t for you.
But here’s the thing… I love this shoe, and I’ve been trying to work out why for a while now.
I think it comes down to this: it’s an out of the box take on what a trail shoe is supposed to be. Satisfy’s design language is doing something that almost nobody else in running is doing, and this shoe is fully part of that.
It’s modelled on an RC car from the 90s, You can see it the second you look at it. It’s not a super fast lightweight carbon infused podium getter, It shouldn’t work. But it does!
Why Nobody’s Talking About It Anymore
Here’s what I think happened to it. It fell into obscurity because it wasn’t fit for purpose for one type of person, and it wasn’t out there enough for another. The purists thought it was too fashion.
The fashion conscious thought it was too running. And price is always gonna be a conversation (£250 is £250) but I’d push back on that one. People don’t watch price when they talk about Satisfy.
They’ll happily talk about a £250 pair of shorts that look like jorts without blinking. So price alone isn’t the story. It just kind of got lost in the middle, even within their own brand’s circles.
Which is a shame. Because the middle is interesting.
Think about who theROCKER is for. It’s for someone that’s bought into Satisfy as a brand. Someone who gets the aesthetic, who understands what they’re trying to do.
Same way someone buys a Brooks Ghost because they’re a Brooks person, or someone picks up the latest Pegasus because they’ve had every version since the dawn of time. Somethings just work for some people.
This is a running shoe for the fashion-conscious person or the fashion-interested person if that sounds less threatening.
The stockists alone tell you who was gonna walk through the door and pick this up. It wasn’t being sold next to the Hoka Speedgoats in a Sports Direct.
theROCKER: The Cotton Tee of the Shoe World
Does Satisfy think of it as a running shoe? I think they do in their world. But their world is their world. Does Satisfy think a cotton tee with holes in it is a running shirt? Absolutely it does.
This shoe is the cotton tee of the shoe world. You can run in it. I have run in it. But it’s something else at the same time.
If a mate asked me whether they should buy one, my honest answer would depend on the person. If they’re cool, yeah, buy it. If they’re asking me while wearing an Altra, I’d probably say “nar, it’s not for you pal!” and I mean that with love.
This shoe transcends running in a way I find genuinely exciting. Yes you can run in it. But it crosses over into something else and I’m personally here for that. The norda 001 is probably the closest comparison which is why they’re next to each other on my shelf.
I don’t see Satisfy as an elite running brand like a SOAR. So why should the shoe be an elite shoe? Why can’t it just be a cool piece of kit? Maybe that’s exactly why I’m drawn to it.
It’s not trying to win a race.
It’s not claiming to be the most technical thing on the trails. It just looks incredible, it comes from a brand with a real point of view, and it’s doing something different and I’m personally here for that!
Let’s get out there and run.
Podcast: Satisfy Founder, Brice Partouche
