 This is the Strider, a collaboration design that I did with Fortis boots from Indonesia. I have to be honest, I didn't enter into into this collaboration to come out with a boot that people would buy. I just wanted one of these for myself. Why was that? G'day, welcome to bootlossophy. My name is Tech and I acknowledge the TOs of the lands I live and work on here in Perth, the Wajik people. Now, this is the Strider, a boot that I drew up that included everything I wanted from a comfortable walking boot and I collaborated with Fortis boots from Bandung in Indonesia to produce. You can see my initial review up there somewhere. Now, of course, it's a it's a biased review. I mean, damn it, I designed it and it was made for me. So how could I not be biased? But I believe it's a fair review anyway, so go and watch it. Now this video today is a long-term wear report. Now while I'm still biased, of course, it's less opinion than a review and more facts about how it's worn so far, even though they are my personal opinions about how they fit on my feet. So a quick recap. Fortis boots is Sunny Ramdhani's brand, an Indonesian boot maker based in the boot maker of Bandung just south of the capital of Jakarta. Boot enthusiasts will recognize Bandung as an epicenter of quality, handmade, hand-stitched boot making in Asia and is recognized as one of the world's centers of quality boot making like the US Pacific Northwest, like Leon in Mexico, like Northampton in the UK. Non-boot enthusiasts will wonder what the fuss is all about, so let's explain it. Now Indonesia and Bandung in particular retain the Dutch colonial influence in the art of making handmade boots and shoes. When Indonesia was a Dutch colony, they imported their trades in making felt-shawn and other stitch techniques into Indonesia to take advantage of cheaper materials and cheaper labor. Sound familiar? When the Dutch left, the experience and expertise remained and today Indonesia is one of the largest producers of footwear in the world and produced shoes for brands like Nike, Adidas, Echo and Timberland. In fact in 2022, the export value of footwear from Indonesia total 7.74 billion US dollars. Now that is a lot of shoes and this does not include the small artisan handmade businesses abounding in Bandung made in small shop houses and sheds by a handful of artisans. Brands like Sagara and Underhood and Bristle Black are beloved by boot collectors. The difference between boot making in say Northampton or Oregon and Bandung is that there are no large-scale factory-type workshops. Their brands employ maybe an average five or six artisans working of what we would recognize as backyard bike sheds sitting cross-legged on stools on the floor. This will explain why I'll say later they operate through social media on their phones rather than have PC-based websites. Fortis and Sunny joined the fray in 2020, struggled through COVID and now it's grown to be a recognized brand amongst the others. I'm actually proud to say that in the most part I discovered Fortis and helped them become known through my videos. I'll put a link to his Instagram below. Now as I say like most of the Bandung brands they don't have automated websites but operate through social media. The Strider was my first collab with Fortis and I've done another since then called The Foreign which is a Capto Chelsea boot and another is on the way. A whole-cut Oxford called The Legolas. I think some of you might get the theme. Sunny is still selling the Strider but he no longer carries the collab logo which you can see here in the original model. This is now his boot. While he can make you one in any leather my philosophy is always to choose a local leather if I can. You know think global act local. So this original Strider is in an Indonesian tanned burgundy pull-up leather but it's turned inside out into a rough out. The grain side is quite a deep burgundy but the outside when new was a great black purple. It's darkened a lot with wear dirt and conditioning but I'll talk about more that later. I go on a lot of hikes with my wife in our national forests and hot dry summer days and damp wet turn of the season days so I wanted a protective tall boot to protect my ankles and feet from tall sharp grasses and logs coupled with a soft outsole for comfort that hopefully don't pick up our clay-based mud and ball bearing gravel in the lugs like on a commando. I like the look of the American upland hunting boots and discussed their variation with Sunny and came up with the Strider in his DACA roomy round toe last eight inches high on a soft Vibram 2021 wedge sole. The construction is well shown essentially hand stitched stitch down but where the insole is channeled for attachment to the midsole and the splayed out uppers. It's a very water resistant build and more of that later as well. Inside is a veg tanned leather insole, cork filling, steel shank and veg tanned leather midsole. The uppers are splayed out and hand stitched to the midsole and inside to the insole as well. The Vibram wedge sole is then securely glued to the midsole. This wedge outsole is a lot softer than the usual Vibram Christi wedge sole like on red wings mock toe wedge soles and so it's remarkably comfortable underfoot and while it may be a function of the softer sand I walk on in these rather than you know hard concrete it seems not to wear down too quickly. Despite the all leather construction did I mention hand stitched it's not a heavy boot at all each boot around 730 grams each. They are very comfortable to walk around in for a whole day. The last is wide and round toeed and honestly it feels like walking on clouds. I've had this boot for about a year and a half now. I wear this around the house sometimes because it's so comfortable but mainly I wear it when we go on our hikes on Sundays. My wife and I will walk on trails for five or six hours every weekend. The terrain involves forest trails, some overgrown with our sharp Australian grasses, some on limestone carved tracks and some on loose what we call ball bearing gravel. In the summer the trails are bone dry and the limestone rock can be sharp under feet and in the autumn or spring they're often wet and we have to cross puddles and overrunning creeks. Apart from being slippery on clay based mud these have performed very well. As I said earlier the Vibram 2020 on wedge sole is soft and comfortable but apart from a nick or two have not shown much wear. The uppers not particularly heavy leather to start with just under two millimeters thick. They have moulded it to my ankles and provided a lot of protection around hard fallen logs and through sharp grasses. The ankle support has been great on uneven ground. The belt shown construction 270 degrees, the hand stitching and I think the Indonesian leather has proved waterproof. I have crossed scores of wide puddles and overflowing creeks and never got my socks wet. After a few months I did put in an arch supportive orthopedic insert because I did feel I needed a little extra arch support for my slightly flat feet. I'm not sure if it's because of the last but I think not because I have a fortress service boot in the same last where I didn't feel the same need. I think it may be because of the combination with a soft wage sole. As for care I initially conditioned the inside of the boot but after six months or so the outside was feeling very dry and I first put on a thick coat of big four on the rough out which sucked in like a dry man in the desert. So then I put on a coat of Venetian shoe cream for the waxiness and then later I did use a thin smear of Obernoff's. While Obernoff's did make it darker obviously and made it look a little waxy I think it was the best conditioner for this rough out helping to waterproof it and keeping it supple. Look I quite like this darker look anyway. When Sunny made this boot for me in this Indonesian leather it cost me US $270 including postage. It will be more if you choose an imported leather. In the same makeup today I think it will be slightly over 300 which is still reasonable for a handmade hand stitched boot. Now let me clarify when I say hand stitched I mean Sunny's craftsman will hand carve a channel in the insole and use an awl to hand punch all the stitch holes on the insole and midsole and the uppers turn out. They will sew by hand through the stitch holes and after each stitch poke the needle into a ball of soap or wax to help it penetrate the layers of leather again no joke. There are no welting or stitch down machines they just don't own any. So bearing that in mind 300 US dollars for a pair of boots made for you specifically to your own measured feet that's not bad. In terms of what you get you get a boot that's largely tough durable comfortable and in my experience waterproof. Again value-wise not at all bad. So in summary this is one of my most comfortable durable boots in my collection. They're not particularly versatile you can't wear it with very smart casual say and some might find the reddish purple a step too far for versatility but I think it's striking. I've enjoyed wearing this boot and certainly have been protected out on the forest trails. If you go to Fortes' Instagram account you can see the many other styles they make the link is down below. Well there you have it I hope you enjoyed the look back at the Fortes philosophy strider boot and I'll just mention that the tongue is actually in a natural coloured Indonesian leather but I've put on one of Dale's Leatherworks kilties and I'll leave a link to Dale's Leatherworks below. Now if you did like the video you know what to do click on like and subscribe because I'm going to bring you a lot more boot reviews over the next few weeks and every week actually. So don't forget to subscribe if you have it all right so take care while you're out there make sure you come back and I'll see you soon