The Salomon Aero Blaze 4 Grvl GTX is technically a gravel running shoe, and it excels in that arena. It’s also becoming an absolute cult favorite among nurses, techs, and other healthcare workers who spend 12 hours on slick floors and want something wipeable, grippy, and weather/other substances-tough. Personally, I tested it on the one surface it was born for: wet, gritty, cursed early-morning gravel that always tries to murder me.
The Gore-Tex of the Aero Blaze 4 Grvl GTX is the cold, wet, ugly-conditions sibling in Salomon’s trail running gravel lineup. It’s a boss of a gravel trainer that shares its midsole, outsole, drop, and stack with the standard Grvl running shoe; the difference is that Gore-Tex upper, which trades some airflow and a little weight for weather and moisture blocking power. If you train through damp autumns and slushy winters, like I do, the GTX is 100 percent what you want.
If you run mostly in dry, warm conditions, save the $20 and some sweat and take the regular version. When it comes to the Aero Blaze 4 Grvl GTX, the lugs make the shoe. At 2.5 mm, the lugs aren’t the aggressive, mud-clawing teeth you’ll get on a mountain shoe.
They’re short, chevron-shaped, and made of Contagrip rubber that gives you enough hold without digging, and they’re short enough that road-to-trail is totally doable. I ran them at Shirley Chisholm Park in Brooklyn, which is a landfill-turned-park full of gravel hills. The conditions were damp, slippery, and gloomy.
I took them out in the early morning, with loose stone over wet packed base. It’s weather that makes you wonder why you’re there and not at the TJ Maxx across the highway. But, even as a Maxxinista, I settled in fast and happy because the lugs gripped like they were made of sticky tack.
My uphills weren’t tripping me up and pulling my toes under my knees, and the downhills didn't turn into a gravel slide. They have just enough give and flex in that rock-protected sole to keep my wobbly body upright, in spite of what gravity would want me to do. Short lugs also mean less trapped debris and more contact area, which is why the grip carries over to hard, wet surfaces.
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