The Chameleon Shift immediately looks and feels quite heavy for a trail shoe but putting them on the scales reveals the weight to be 454g for the pair so about average for this type of shoe.
Overall fit of the Chameleon Shift is pretty tight and contoured to the foot and the toe box is quite narrow which suits some more than others. The general feel of the shoe is stiff and sturdy which provides good stability on rockier terrain but can make for a bit of a tiring ride when walking on more gentle ground.
The heel cage is deeply contoured and again very stiff, we’re not sure why but your heel moves up and down a little too much for our liking regardless of what socks you wear or how tight you lace them up. On longer walks this starts to become tiresome and eventually leads to blisters developing. Possibly with a few more miles under their belt everything would ease up enough to eradicate the problem but we're not sure that we want to get the blisters to find out!
The leather and mesh upper, whilst not completely waterproof deals with damp weather well and also allows your foot to breath, so great for the Autumn.
One thing we love about Merrell shoes is the M Select FRESH antimicrobial agents which reduce shoe odour – this works fantastically well in these and our All Out Charge trail running shoes which frequently get saturated with sweat but still don’t stink!
The price of the Chameleon Shift is top end for a trail shoe which we feel would have been fully justified had it not been for the issue with heel lift.
We’ve just received a pair of Chameleon Shift mids to test, first impressions are that the heel lift issue isn’t apparent on these, so Merrell could be on to a winner. Look out for the full review coming soon.
