Lakeland Great Outdoors and Scarpa - thumbs up

Followers of my recent MacmillanWay walk will have read about the problem I had with  Scarpa Cyrus trail shoes.

After returning the shoes to my retailer, Lakeland Great Outdoors at Staveley near Kendal they were returned to Mountain Boot Company at Newcastle upon Tyne who I presume are the UK distributors for Scarpa. Initially Mountain Boot refused to refund because there was no manufacturing fault, but further communication followed emphasising that my complaint was a matter of "fitness for purpose".

I have now been contacted  by Lakeland Great Outdoors saying they have have come to a mutual agreement wtih Mountain Boot enabling them to give me a full refund.

I would like to say that the whole of this matter was handled by Lakeland Great Outdoors' Sales Manager, Geoff Jackson in a professional and courteous manner and I would have no hesitation in shopping there again.

Others may wish to look more carefully next time they are buying trail shoes - here is a copy of the formal complaint that I needed to make to Lakeland:

Lakeland Great Outdoors Ltd

Plantation Bridge

Nr. Staveley

Cumbria LA8 9JA

Dear Sirs,

I bought a pair of Scarpa Cyrus trail shoes from you on 15th April 2015 (£129.80). I have an issue with this purchase and have taken legal advice and I understand my contract is with you as retailers and as such I must therefore claim against you, so please accept this letter as my formal complaint.

I explained to the sales assistant (somewhat boastfully) that I wanted the shoes to walk The Macmillan Way from Boston, Lincolnshire to Abbotsbury, Dorset, a distance of 290 miles. This is a recognised English Long Distance Footpath marked on the Ordnance Survey map following public footpaths and bridleways and some Tarmac roads.

I am a an experienced walker having completed many long distance walks including Land’s End to John ‘o Groats, The GR10, and the GR5 as well as completing all the Munros. I suggest that nobody of experience would dispute the advisability of  wearing good quality trail shoes for the above mentioned long distance walk. 

I tried the shoes in the shop and wore them briefly outside and had no complaint regarding comfort and fit but I wanted to preserve them, specifically because of the long distance of the walk, which I started on 20th May 2015, and finished on 10th June 2015.

After a couple of miles from the start of the walk on 20th May 2015 the soles of my feet became painful, which is a problem I have not encountered before. In my opinion ANY walking footwear should be capable of sustaining comfort for a distance of more than two miles over normal terrain. When I examined the shoes closely I found the soles had no cushioning apart from some uncushioned footbeds. I struggled on wondering if I would be able to continue with the walk until I got to Stamford on the third day which was the first place of any size. By then I could not have continued with the walk at that stage wearing the Scarpas. I was able to buy a pair of shoes from an outdoor shop which were well cushioned, and cured the problem immediately, and lasted for the rest of the twenty one day walk with no further painful soles of my feet. I had to post the Scarpas back home at a cost of £13.75 (I have the postal receipt). 

I returned from the walk on 10th June 2015 and returned the shoes to you on 12th June 2015 and you offered to return them to your wholesaler with my complaint. The wholesaler has since returned the shoes to you refusing to accept any responsibility. I have the original receipt in my possession and you accepted the veracity of my purchase when I returned the shoes.

I am not complaining about a manufacturing defect.

I am complaining about the "fitness for purpose" as required by the Sale of Goods Act. 

There is no question of the shoes being the wrong size, they fit my feet properly. I had equal discomfort on THE SOLES of BOTH feet, not because they were being pinched in any way, but because there was no cushioning. As I stated replacement with shoes that had good cushioning cured the problem immediately.

I would appreciate a rapid  acknowledgement of receipt of this email, and look forward to your considered reply which I would hope to receive within fourteen days.

Regards

Conrad Robinson

Tree climbing and funny gates

I cannot remember the last time I wore boots.

Last summer I walked from Lowestoft to Clacton, most of the Cheshire Ring, the Sandstone Trail, the Kennet and Avon Canal, the Severn Way and the Monmouth Brecon Canal, and many outings in between, all wearing Gortex lined trainers. My feet have only been wet occasionally, and that was through walking in long wet grass soaking down through socks, which happens anyway with boots.

Scotland is different: rough, pathless steep terrain demands boots.

On Thursday we walked new ground east of Windermere -  a delight of small hills, minor roads, tracks and paths. I identified one geocache near the road, but now confess to inventing yet another way of mucking up navigation. I printed the OS map (enlarged) and put it in a plastic wallet. Being too lazy to unseal I marked the geocache position onto the plastic. Of course, when we came close to the spot I found we had already walked past because the map had moved inside the plastic. The geocache was left for another day.

Next day, alone, I followed a more cross country route finding five caches on a five mile trip, but failed finding the one we had missed. The last one had been set by Cragrat (geocache nick name) and involved climbing an oak tree to gain the cache in a mock bird box. An old fence post propped against the trunk provided a foothold.  A secret opening mechanism had me stumped for a while.

I emailed Cragrat congratulating him on his ingenious cache. He turned out to be Wilf of Wilf’s Café fame at Staveley who I knew from regular visits with Tony, my late climbing partner.

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Housekeeping: observant readers may notice the panel of photos of my followers has disappeared. An undesirable appeared there linking to things radically political which I wanted no association with. I tried to delete but the whole lot went and as far as I can tell there is no way of getting them back.

Nb: the increasing number in my geocache finder following my renewed enthusiasm for that pursuit.

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Pink = route Thursday with Pete.
Brown = solo route Friday

Two pics on the walk with Pete

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Bird box geocache on my solo walk - Friday. Nb fence post used as foothold

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SOME RECENT GEOCACHE PICS

NB - Sign to right of gate (enlargement below): another award from the eccentric Waist High Passimmeter Awards. Google  and see if you can make more sense of it than I  - it looks like a sort of sarcasm award to me

Click to enlarge

Leighton Hall and RSPB Leighton Moss - Arnside Knott, I live over the other side

How to make a proper job of supporting your guttering

Inov-8 Roclite 400 GTX boots - review

I bought these boots for my forthcoming walk round the borders of Wales, and the17 mile "round the bay" walk, subject of my last post, was a suitable test for them.

My normal boot size has ranged from 10 to 11 over the years depending on the fittings of individual brands. Amazingly the best size for me with the Roclites was 9.5, so this is worth bearing in mind if you are shopping for them, and it may cause problems for Internet purchase. The boots are comfortable and caused no chafing or nipping over the 17 miles and 5.5 hours of walking. The overall feeling was one of neatness and nimble footedness.

I inserted Sorbothane insoles, and because of the lightness of the boots, without this addition I think they may be a bit hard on the soles of the feet - I was feeling surface irregularities through the soles to some extent by the end of the walk.

These boots will be ideal for path walking, but I would not use them for Munro bashing on steep pathless hillsides where a strong edging facility and firmer support are important.

Addendum - 23rd September 2011 - I walked round the Welsh boundary in the summer (over 1000 miles and 57 days). The Roclites, which were virtually new at the start had worn down to soft sponge rubber on the heels after 27 days so they are not really suitable for long distance work, but they were comfortable and light.                                                                                                                    

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I have had to change the start date of my Fife Coastal Walk to 5th April