Yesterday I said the brands will start pulling back on releasing shoes for review until closer to the in store date. Here is an example of why: https://www.believeintherun.com/2020/02/05/brooks-hyperion-elite-review/
Dead on arrival! That’s not what you want to hear when someone is talking about the shoe you’ve been working on for more than 2 years. Obviously this is one review but it’s not a pretty one.
Wow !
The “new generation shoes” main principle is cushion (leading to the high stack).
Either it is a production mistake, either they missed the main point.
This is why you see the outcry from athletes signed with non-Nike companies. They know they will be in inferior products. That’s on their sponsors. If I was Dez, Huddle, or the HOKA athletes, I’d insist on running the trials in blacked out Alphaflys. Their sponsors have failed them.
Their sponsors have failed them.
Sponsorship is a 2 way street. You sign the contract based on past performance and future potential, both of yourself & the company you sign with.
Most often as an athlete you’re not in the loop what’s going to happen in the future with whatever equipment. Especially at competitors to “your” brand.
If you’re upset with your company, think another brand will help you achieve X or Y break your contract.
Maybe if the athletes had gone more all in, had a different coach, trained in a different area they wouldn’t be failing the company by running slower than the runners wearing the next shoe.
I give you the recent 10k world record set in Adidas. From what I’ve read the dude wasn’t bitching and moaning about shoes, he just ran faster than anyone…ever.
Is the athlete failing the company or the company failing the athlete? You’ve got a very shallow viewpoint regarding sponsorship and how it works.
Shoe design is a lot harder than the avg person things. Wait, I need to correct myself. Product design is a hell of a lot harder than most people think it is.
That is probably the most scathing review of anything sports related I’ve seen. Brutal. Almost makes you wonder if they literally got a bad pair of shoes, however unlikely that would be. Was really hoping every company would be a true competitor but it’s looking like probably just New Balance and maybe Saucony/Sketchers in the game still. Disappointing…
Thank goodness I turned all those shoe sponsorship offers down so I can still wear my Next%
lol 
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It almost sounds as if they just took the racing flat, put a carbon plate in it, and called it an elite racing shoe and tripled the price.
This is why you see the outcry from athletes signed with non-Nike companies. They know they will be in inferior products. That’s on their sponsors. If I was Dez, Huddle, or the HOKA athletes, I’d insist on running the trials in blacked out Alphaflys. Their sponsors have failed them.
I agree that many athletes signed with other companies are going to be at a disadvantage, but it’s not Nike’s fault. Nike’s patents don’t prevent Brooks from choosing a soft springy foam. I think most of these companies have been focused on the wrong aspect of these shoes.
The carbon plate, in my anecdotal experience is not really about being a spring. If anything, the plates greatest advantage is that it improves the functionality of a rocker-shaped sole. Embracing a thick, soft springy foam is the biggest thing that Nike has changed and I think other companies are having a hard time changing their thinking that “responsive” (i.e. hard) midsoles are fast.
Putting firm foam in these shoes is a huge mistake and they can only blame themselves.
I put a lot of blame on Nike for many other bad things they do, but shoe design or patents are not among them.
As someone who has worked on all sides of running shoes from sitting on the floor at running stores, to being part of a brand that grew really large in retail, to working for one of the big shoe brands thinking up running shoes than putting a plan behind them, to taking over a fledgling shoe company trying to make something of it and now working for the entire industry on whatever they need me to do there are some truths here but let’s go through the history.
Nike turned the running shoe world upside down with the Breaking 2 project. Everything after it is a reaction to it. It’s taken 3 years for every brand to fully react and without going into all the detail, that makes total sense to me. Let’s just touch on Brooks. They absolutely rule in the US in running specialty with the most important runner on the planet the 25-40 year old woman. Right now they can’t go wrong with her. (Yes retailers out there know what happened in 2019 but this is about shoes not back end process) It’s a huge risk for Brooks to chase Nike. They don’t really need a racing shoe they simply need to keep the pressure on what they are doing really well. That said every shoe company has competitors working for them. The Brooks Sales Manager could run a faster marathon than most on this website. Those competitors want to compete in running, and in business. They also recently developed the Brooks Beasts running team and they have had the benefit of Des Linden for her entire career.
You are right I’ll be Des wasn’t talking about the Nike Shoes. I’ll bet she was cool with just running in the current flats knowing that her toughness is her strength. But sure enough she won Boston in an early prototype of this shoe. I still don’t think at that point, Brooks was 100% sure they would release this shoe into the market. They kept developing and watching. At some point they pulled the string that said let’s go.
Somewhere between that decision and the review we just saw they started to rush something. That shoe that was just reviewed is not production. It’s a pre-production sample to test mostly fit on the upper. To commercialize a shoe they open one or two molds test, test, test then at some point they extend to 4 molds test, test, test and then finally they open every mold and go through a pre-production run. Once all is approved they sign off and start production. The review tells me, the midsole is not to their specifications. How that shoe got released for review is a big question. Rest assured, the smart shoe people at Brooks will adjust the durometer in production and the shoe that comes out will feel alive.
Good points…in Kona last year the Nike came in 4th place in the men’s race so it didn’t affect the podium.
If a pro is complaining about their shoe contract holding them back they need learn to run faster.
Brooks missing the “cushion” crucial point does not mean other brand missed it also.
New Balance future top shoe is apparently very soft.
Hoka I do not know, but they experienced high stack/high cushion before Nike.
Saucony use PEBA also, so probably not missed the point.
I understand Nike fan try to push their new baby, but at this stage, absolutely no evidence it is more efficient than the other “new generation” shoes coming from Saucony, NB, Hoka, … (apparently Brooks not there anymore)
The request for athletes was for a regulation. They have it now. And it look pretty good.
Late, yes.
Straight on he spec of the AlphaPlacebo, yes. But hey, money talk
The “performance gap” opened in 2017 is most probably going to be closed in one month
This is some pretty strong statement. I won’t buy them for sure.
“I felt nothing from the plate, and there was zero bounce, to the point that it was harsh on the legs.
I thought to myself– there is no way I would run a marathon in this;”
So you think the shoe reviewed is a “wrong” batch. And the production could be softer ?
The reviewers note that the shoe come alive when they “sprint”. Do you think it could be tuned for really fast runners, making it hard for “standart” runners ? (so a different strategy than the really soft 4%, Next, Endorphin, NB Racer, …)
Well, Believe In the Run seem to be Nike Sychophants.
I don’t know the specifications of that midsole they are using. The Nike and Saucony shoes are using pbax which has that incredibly soft yet alive feel. The New Balance is using their Fuel Cell foam which has a unique feel of it’s own. I can only imagine Brooks did not intend for that shoe to come out the way it’s being described, Dead. You can have a firm midsole that doesn’t feel dead and as noted you can have a soft midsole that doesn’t feel mushy. I’m guessing the midsole on the samples they are using is done by hand and not through production. The Brooks Developers will be in Asia monitoring production. They will test the midsoles using a gauge to make sure it is in spec. They will test the midsole before the shoe is assembled and test the shoe once assembled. They know what the assembly process should do to the midsole but they always have to check to make sure.
I don’t think I need to tell you, if it is in fact to spec and it only comes alive sprinting or at 5 min pace it won’t be very popular.
Indeed, if they work only around 5mn/mile (3mn/km), they are not for me. And not going to be very popular, indeed.
Brooks missing the “cushion” crucial point does not mean other brand missed it also.
New Balance future top shoe is apparently very soft.
Hoka I do not know, but they experienced high stack/high cushion before Nike.
Saucony use PEBA also, so probably not missed the point.
I understand Nike fan try to push their new baby, but at this stage, absolutely no evidence it is more efficient than the other “new generation” shoes coming from Saucony, NB, Hoka, … (apparently Brooks not there anymore)
The request for athletes was for a regulation. They have it now. And it look pretty good.
Late, yes.
Straight on he spec of the AlphaPlacebo, yes. But hey, money talk
The “performance gap” opened in 2017 is most probably going to be closed in one month
You either really hate nike, or are totally delusional
you keep making the point that the nike shoes were not “scientifically proven” to be faster and missing the forest for the trees. It does not matter if they are proven faster or not, what matters is that nike convinced the world that they are faster and people assume each new model is even faster than the one before it. That’s why they were able to charge a price unheard of for running shoes and still it was impossible to get these shoes for months.
So regardless of scientific proof (or lack thereof), nike is 3 years ahead of everyone else, because that is what people think.
And if you don’t believe me go to any ironman race. 3 years ago you did not see a single nike shoe, now it dominates. And not just 4%/next%, it trickled down to pegs/peg turbo/etc.
Take this from someone who isn’t a huge Nike fan: the vaporfly’s are faster than the competition, and it ain’t just placebo effect. Nike really has the shoe competition by the throat. After getting back on the sport a few years ago, bikes are a bit faster, westuits are a bit faster, electronic shifting is cool, but vaporfly’s technology advancement is in a league of his won. I am a huge fan of Mizuno, Asics, Saucony and a few more, but being a competitive athlete, it is hard to let everyone around get 2-4% free speed.
I am looking forward to seeing competition catch up so I admit it is a bit disappointing that both Hoka and Brooks have generally failed.
Yeah, Thomas at BITR really didn’t like it and didn’t hide that fact.
I’ve got a pair arriving for me in a day or so. I’ll reserve my opinion until I actually get them on my feet. I’ve held them in my hands but that doesn’t really say much, in hand it felt pretty soft, not Zoom X soft but in many cases that may not be a terrible thing. Brooks has been open that they wanted a more stable platform, one that didn’t allow the foot to collapse too far medially as it approached toe off.
I should have some ASICS Metaracers coming soon too, that one has serious potential and everyone is forgetting to talk about it.
Agree on the Metaracer!