Boots

Choosing the right riding boots for your motorcycle adventure

General thoughts

There is no boot that will do everything well. You need to figure out what kind of riding you're doing and what your priorities are. I own two pairs of Adventure boots (Forma Terra Evo and Sidi Adventure) and I wear them when I know I'm going to be riding for multiple days, through all kinds of weather, walking a lot, but don't plan on riding anything challenging for me personally. So staying well within my comfort zone where I am close to 100% confident I can ride without crashing. If I'm not sure what the ride will be like, I will wear my Gaerne off-road boots.

So figure out what your ride will be like and prioritize - Are you planning on walking a lot? Or riding a lot? Will you be standing a ton? Will you be riding challenging terrain where you might crash a lot?

Sole

A stiffer sole is the main thing that separates a offroad riding boot from a hiking boot or a work boot. This sole is what prevents your foot from becoming taco shaped when you hit a log or a rock on the trail,  getting twisted into a pretzel if it gets caught in a rut or some part of the bike, or getting broken if your kickstarter kicks back or you land hard off a jump. The stiffer it is the more protection you have and the better it is for standing on the pegs. The less stiff it is, the easier the boot is to walk in. You should be barely (if at all) able to bend the sole of a good off-road/enduro boot by hand. A dual sport boot is usually pretty stiff but can be bent pretty easily.

Lugged soles are better for walking/hiking/pushing bikes, but smoother soles are better for riding because it's much easier to shift your foot back and forth on the pegs and you have better feel for the controls.  

Toe, midfoot and heel impact protection

For impact protection, on an offroad boot, the top and sides of your foot are typically encased in plastic and usually with some padding inside. When a bike falls on you, or your foot gets run over by a tire (happens all the time in racing and pushing bikes through gnarly terrain), or you smack the side of your foot on the foot peg, you basically don't feel anything. Adv boots are usually just thick leather with a little soft plastic here and there. In my opinion they don't provide much more protection in this area than a work or hiking boot. If I smack my foot against something wearing one of these boots, it hurts quite a bit.

Obviously all this hard plastic and ankle stiffness in an offroad boot isn't great for walking around and typically adds a lot of weight and cost. So if you're not riding in situations where you're getting your feed jammed under bikes or run over, it's probably not necessary. One again, it's important to figure out what kind of riding you're planning to do.

Ankle bending protection

I can bend the adv boots in half by hand, there is very little support there. An offroad boot like the Gaerne SG series and even something like an Alpinestars tech 1 is much more stiff, with the former being almost like a ski boot. This is super important when riding tight singletrack, because your feet will get caught on things that tries, or jammed under the bike, both of which will try to bend your ankle in a way it's not meant to bend.