A travel-tested take on Salomon's new Aero Blaze 4 GRVL has argued a case worth hearing: if you run on holiday, a gravel shoe might be the only pair you need to pack.
The reviewer, a New Yorker-turned-Swiss resident, was sceptical of the whole gravel category until he entered an 11K race near Zurich that turned out to be 80% trail. Road shoes left him nervous on loose rock descents, and trail shoes felt sluggish on asphalt. Gravel shoes — designed for exactly that in-between ground — solved it. He then put the Aero Blaze 4 GRVL through a 14K gravel race in the Swiss Alps and a week of wet running around Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Isle of Skye and Fort William in Scotland.
The verdict: the shoe's shallow 2.5mm lugs make it feel road-like on pavement, while still gripping dirt and level gravel confidently. The midsole uses supercritical eTPU foam — the same family of material as Adidas' Boost — so it's bouncy and light, and it's comfortable enough to wear all day as a casual sneaker, which matters when you're sightseeing between runs.
There are honest limits. On a 22K muddy Highlands run with 950 metres of climbing, the flat lugs slid badly on wet grass and marsh — this is a shoe for light trails, not technical mountain terrain. And the Gore-Tex version, once water slops in over the collar, traps it there; the reviewer recommends the standard model for better drainage.
Why should a traveller care? Because most of us can't justify packing both road and trail shoes, and gravel shoes handle whatever route a running app throws at you — city pavements, canal paths, groomed forest tracks. They also double as comfortable everyday footwear, so your running shoes can be your only shoes. That's genuinely useful packing logic for a city break with trails nearby, or a business trip where you still want to get the legs moving.
Salomon launched the Aero Blaze 4 GRVL alongside a Gore-Tex version, and with Nike, Adidas and HOKA now flirting with the category, purpose-built gravel models are worth seeking out over rebranded road-to-trail shoes. If your trips lean technical and muddy, though, stick with something toothier.
Story first reported by Outside Online.
