ECCO Men's Biom Fjuel Terrain Oxford

I have owned many pairs of Ecco shoes, and I have followed the Biom line in particular. Ecco has some truly great designer/engineers, and the ones who created the Biom line belong in shoe history. The original Biom B running shoe is one of the best shoes I have owned. I still have my well worn originals, and I found a new old stock pair on ebay that I snatched up immediately. I run in the newer ones, and I knock around in the luxurious and fantastically comfortable old ones. Unfortunately, the marketers seem to rule over the designer/engineers, and the best Ecco shoes are often difficult to identify. It is impossible to track the hundreds of models of Ecco shoes and their variations, especially given the poor and inconsistent descriptions provided by the marketers. And then unfortunately there are sometimes production flaws—like the ones that caused cracked soles. I have a nice Seattle GTX plain toe pair that was a perfect bad weather semi-dress shoe, but the soles cracked the first year. I couldn’t tell how the water was getting in the shoe—it was a $200 Gore-tex model! Eventually I found the cracks—in both soles! Unforgivable—except that Ecco is now a big, mass market producer with factories spread around the planet and quality is impossible to control. You have to study carefully to know what you are getting—and return inferior shoes. I’m stuck with the cracked soles, but I’m all the more vigilant when I buy now—especially when I pay $200. This new Biom Fjuel model attracted my attention because it resembled those Biom B running shoes that I love. The trouble with those is that they’re white, with red soles, and they’re obviously running shoes. There’s no sneaking them into a dress-casual setting, or even a casual setting--at least, not at my age. But the Fjuel—just maybe it will be more versatile. So I bought them. First, the Biom Fjuel in this Black leather/leather lined edition is flat out stunning—even better in real life than in the pictures. It’s obviously a sport shoe, but you could sneak it under some black slacks and just about get away with it in a more casual setting. The styling is A+. Someone even persuaded the marketers not to emboss and paint ECCO all over the shoe—something they do even to their upper level dress shoes (which makes them pretty much worthless/tasteless for more formal occasions). Instead, these Fjuels say “biom” in small letters low on the side, and then also on the shoestrings. You can find “ecco” only on the pull loop. Everything else is subdued except for the white strips on the lace loops, which glow reflectively and look great. The yak leather is substantial and soft and perforated in a tasteful way. The shoes are relatively light. They are also intelligently and precisely supportive and cushioned in the way that the true Bioms are. They are very comfortable, and it’s a pleasure and relief to put them on. I rate them a 94/100 and so a 5 on Amazon’s scale. A comparison with the original Biom B shoes (99/100) has the Fjuel’s falling a little short in some areas. The B leather is superior—thinner, softer, more flexible, wrapping around the foot like a glove or chamois —yet strong and completely supportive and still in prime condition after years of wear. The Fjuel’s leather is great--A quality—but not as great, not A+. It also shows a tiny bit more of the usual yak imperfections, but the Black covers that up pretty well. The cushioning feels a little softer on the Fjuels, but that could be due to the wear on the Bs and the fact the Fjuels are new. The Fjuels are also a little heavier than the Bs, and I prefer a lighter (but strong) shoe. The Fjuel’s soles are built up more under the arch, while the Bs seem to have every extra milligram of weight carved out, and it makes a difference. The most significant difference for me, and a knick in the rating for the Fjuels, is that the contact area of the fjuel's sole is a few millimeters narrower than the B's across the widest part of the ball and across the mid-heel. I noticed this before I measured. The fjuels are the narrowest of all the Bioms I own. This is for me a negative because it reduces lateral stability. It is not so great a negative that I would return the shoe—it is great and useful to me in too many other ways—but I would be reluctant to be really active in them on uneven terrain. In short, this is a great shoe, especially great in styling and design and materials, with just one weakness, and even though it is not the best Ecco I own, it is right there near the top. I am keeping these, and I look forward to wearing them in places I would never wear the Bs.

I love Ecco as a brand as I think they use very high quality leathers and make extremely comfortable, stylish and durable shoes. These shoes tick all of those boxes. They look amazing, are extremely comfortable and have quickly become one of my “goto” pairs shoes. Ecco are not the cheapest, but for me they are definitely worth the money.

Great shoes & very comfortable.

I've owned about 8 pairs of this shoe over the past 10 years or so, and while I still love them, they have changed over time. They used to be made with a much softer yak leather which made them extremely comfortable from day one. The new leather is harder and require a little breaking in and never really gets as comfortable as they used to. They'll squeak a little the first few weeks. This may be the reason the price has dropped a bit over the years. Arch support is still there. It does seem the new leather is a little more durable. The older style wore the finish quickly and you'd get a lot of creases in the leather and required frequent polishing. The look is still the best, and the fit is always proper, and I'm yet to find a better shoe for the price. Customer service isn't what it was. Used to be, any defects were quickly resolved. Last time I had problem, I had to go through several levels of the service team to get it resolved. All in all, it remains my favorite shoe, even with the less comfortable shoe. I wish I could still get the old yak leather though as an option. There was not a more comfortable shoe on the planet when these first came out.

These shoes are pretty comfortable. I thought maybe they were a little too thin in the soles to be any good for walking, but they are pretty good walking shoes. The only real problem I have with them has to do with the shoe laces. They are the kind of laces that are filled with some kind of "foam." After I tie them they look all day long the way I feel when I have had too much coffee, that is, they cannot relax. They stand straight up or straight to the side with some oddly angular kinks in them, but they never ever relax. I am probably not telling anybody anything they didn't already know when I say that it is almost impossible to find any good shoe lace replacements. You are about as likely to find a good shoe lace replacement as you are likely to find a good belt buckle. It is apparently so easy to defraud people with these items that nobody takes the trouble to make good ones.

Passform, wie bei ecco zu erwarten, - perfekt. Sehr leicht und angenehm zu tragen. Verarbeitung perfekt. Vor allem hat mich der Schuh optisch sehr angesprochen. Sieht wirklich klasse aus mit den orangen Bändern. Wem es nicht gefällt - es liegen auch noch blaue Bänder zum wechseln bei. Ist nicht ganz günstig, aber würde ihn wieder kaufen.

Der Schuh sieht sportlich und hochwertig aus. Er hat ein ausgeprägtes Fußbett und ist bequem.

je porte ce modèle depuis 10 ans et j'en suis ravi , donc je rachète régulièrement une nouvelle paire et noir ou blanc !

Gubben blev jättenöjd med skorna. Sköna, snygga och bekväma på fötterna.

Parfaite chaussure de ville, à pied ou à vélo. Super confortable, excellent maintien de la cheville et bonne semelle intérieur qui soutient la voute plantaire. À porter avec un jeans.