Who makes Vitruvians, and what is so good about them?
the guy who posted above, Chuck LaBonte, makes them. What is so good about them? I’ve never tried them but they are cheap, they are simple, and they aren’t Nikes.
3 good reasons to buy right there.
IMO, $6000 bicycle = $250 shoes
Neither will make you faster, but it’s easy to find reasons why one would think it will.
Julian, http://www.vitruvianrunning.com/
Puskas, while I respect your points of view, I am with Matt with the heal to toe drop. It is totally useless. All shoes should have a zero drop from heal to toe. This is how the human foot is meant to function.
To the other poster who suggested that the marketing guys are doing their job selling high priced shoes to non runners who make up the mass of buyers, you hit it right on. We just need some real shoes for real runners :-).
Dev, that is good news! Thanks.
it’s a physiological requirement or you risk achilles problems
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Damn the human body for evolving so poorly. Thank god we have nike to correct it.
Wags, I’ll be going out on my “non skate cut” “skate cut” RCS tomorrow morning for 35K at 6 am before the snow gets too soft. Just another 10 days more or so left in the season before the white stuff is all gone :-(.
…hey Casey, you would not want to build up slowly and gradually to remain injury free …no way ! In the western McCulture, you must have everything NOW including high mileage with no base :-). The marketing guys know it, which is why they offer what they do 
I’m not a physiologist, but I do know that the feet we have now are not the same as the feet we had a thousand years ago. The surfaces we run on aren’t the surfaces we ran on a thousand years ago. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that a certain amount of drop from heel to toe is required to keep a healthy achilles during the activities we enjoy. Besides which, I think the point is that more heel drop would be harmful, so shoe designers stick to a certain range of drop, into which this new shoe probably fits.
must be why so many little kids have problems walking & running barefoot in the yard. I’ll be sure to get our 1 year old a pair of nike’s with an orthopedic footbed to accomodate the change.
Wags and Dev,
Fischer is not going to make skate-cuts for the RCS next year, but will continue to make the SCS as a skate-cut. They began making straight-cuts again 2 or 3 years ago at the request of the world cup skiers…the called them the 610’s.
This was recently printed in SkiSport magazine in Norway:
“This
year they present skate-skis with parallel construction, and
have finally retired their ‘skate cut.’ The Austrian manufacturer has
long known that the skate-cut is not optimal, but has only produced
parallel construction for World Cup skiers. This year, however, we
expect to see many more of these skis on podiums around the country.”
Even the best research process sometimes fails in practical application.
Dan
funny – never heard of the adi 1 till this post, went from this post to check my email and saw a 1 ad plastered on the top of my hotmail account! me, i’ll be checking out the vitruvians, if only for the cool name, agreeable price, and refreshingly simple core philosophy: “Put a cushioned midsole between the foot and the running surface and secure it to the foot with an upper made to fit snugly and not interfere with movement or mechanics involved.”
Chuck, I must say that is a pretty damn bold name you’ve given your company. Was your inspiration more from the guy who did the first drawing below, the second, or maybe something like the third that led to a tangent of sorts? Do tell. I also dig the less is more philosophy with shoes, in fact I wish I could dip my foot in some type of compound that would turn to liquid around 120 degrees and harden below that to form an exoskeleton type of shoe.
this poster made an extremely valid point here Dev. I totally respect your opinion as a poster and an athlete…but without concrete data and proof that this shoes is as you say it is…the original post was a no no.
no… i wd view dev’s comment about hi-tech shoes potentially causing injury as another salvo in the eternal Pose debate, not a specific attack against adidas. It’s more of a philosophical difference about what running is than an attack on a specific brand or model as being unsafe or poorly constructed. I think the post is ok. (note of course that on your read the adidas rep violated the rules by impying that pose method, which advocates using shoes w/o elevated heel, would cause achilles injury).
Chuck can probably answer this better than I can, but it seems to me that Vetruvians are for runners.
They’ve got a complete kick ass return policy, and for $30 or $60, I’ll check them out when my Brooks die.
I’m not a physiologist, but I do know that the feet we have now are not the same as the feet we had a thousand years ago. The surfaces we run on aren’t the surfaces we ran on a thousand years ago. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that a certain amount of drop from heel to toe is required to keep a healthy achilles during the activities we enjoy. Besides which, I think the point is that more heel drop would be harmful, so shoe designers stick to a certain range of drop, into which this new shoe probably fits.
When “running” shoes first came on the market in the 60s they had zero drop people managed just fine…before then runners ran in plimsoles with zero drop, people managed just fine. Wedged heel shoes are a development of the last 20 years to accomodate recreational runners who think they need all that cushioning and motion control.
Over pronation is the biggest misnomer in running…your foot pronates as much as it needs to, no more no less. Correcting the pronation of the foot by wearing clogs will throw something else out of kilter.
Very few of us are biomechanically perfect and our bodies know this and make adjustments accordingly. If you overpronate it may be to accomodate a hip alignment issue, or tight hamstrings or god knows what. You pronate for a reason…don’t interfere with nature because it generally knows whats best.
What is it about engineers that makes them think that every natural process can be improved with a little technology?
"must be why so many little kids have problems walking & running barefoot in the yard. I’ll be sure to get our 1 year old a pair of nike’s with an orthopedic footbed to accomodate the change. "
Yes, because that is completely the same as a 180lb man running on pavement in a straight line for an hour.
Kentiger, fair enough, I have not tried the Adidas 1, but when I go to my local running shoe store and go through all the Adidas shoes on the rack, I can’t find a single shoe without a plastic shank of some kind under the mid foot. This is my beef with Adidas and the rest of the running shoe industry. They are trying to correct my feet for problems that I don’t have. My 1980 Adidas Triax 3 were much better shoes than most of the Adidas Shoes on the market today. I’ve used the shoes from Adidas extensively and used by and large, they had better products 20 years ago than they do now (with respect to correcting problems that a runner may or may not have).
As such, I stand by my original post. I did not mean to neccessarily beating up on the specific shoe (although this is what the title of the thread suggests), more the overall direction of the company strategy. As an owner of 3 pairs of Adidas shoes in my basement today, and many more pairs over 25 years of running, I have actually tried on and extensively their products (even run sub 3 hours in the Boston marathon after extensively modifying the midfoot shank of my Adidas Bostons).
Yes, because that is completely the same as a 180lb man running on pavement in a straight line for an hour.
The ONLY reason I think running shoes are necessary at all is because we run on pavement, and our feet are not generally tough enough for the task. Biomechanically speaking, I doubt there’s very much difference between running on a dirt road or a paved road.
No idea why “running in a straight line” has anything to do with anything.
Any kniesiologists in the house???
Form my very limited knowledge of biomechanics, it seems pretty clear that the ankle is meant to be the first shock absorbing pivot followed by the knee and then the hip. If the ankle is to work and flex upon impact a runner must strike the road with his mid/forefoot…hard to do with 2-3 inches of EVA under your heel.
If you run with a big wedged shoe and strike with your heel and a straight leg, the ankles and knees no longer act as pivots and the shock goes striaght up the leg to the pelvis and spine…which can’t be good.