Emercia Tosh Skate Shoe Review

Tosh was born to ride. His father, Peter Townend, was World Surfing Champion in his day, and passed his skill at riding a board to Tosh. His new signature skate shoe, the Emerica Tosh, combines the padding of a larger puffy skate shoe with the thinner soled lighter skate shoes that provide better feel and feedback.

The Tosh rides a little low, but only on the sides. The heel comes back up to the regular height, and the padding for the heel collar is thick, huge and aggressive – it grips your heel and doesn’t let go. This gives the shoe a little bit of a weird feel. It’s not uncomfortable, just a little different.

Around the heel on the outside of the shoe, a strong plastic heel brace has been added. It’s glued on, which scares me, but you can’t exactly stitch something like this in place. Tosh Townend has had ankle surgery, and you gotta wonder how much things like that influence the pros when they design their shoes. Whatever the reason, it’s a cool extra feature.

The back end of the shoe, the heel cup, is all glued into place rather than stitched. This could be a big deal – the shoes are still new, so only time will tell. Our testing showed no sign of the shoes coming apart at all, and Emerica uses the Sole Tech lab’s testing equipment on their shoes. So why do I mention it? It’s something that I would want to know before ordering a pair. As a rule, I stick with stitched shoes.

The sole is a straight forward herring bone tread with no scoring for flexibility, no multiple rubbers, nothing special. Imbedded in the heel is a cool large T that looks very cool.

The Emerica Tosh skate shoes are good shoes – they provide the essentials with a few extra features to protect your foot. They’ll ride well, and look good.