by Carsten Hoever The Inov-8 OROC 280 is a shoe I never wanted to buy. After two winter running seasons with way too many sidewalks, roads, and even trails covered in snow-turned-slush-turned-solid-ice I was fed up with running on the tread mill. What I needed for the coming winter was a shoe with enough traction […]
Saucony Peregrine 4 Trail Shoe Review by BikerNate
March 4, 2014 By 5 Comments
It’s not very often that there is a bright side to getting injured. While visiting Performance Health Spine and Sport Therapy to have my Ant. Tib. Tendonitis worked on by Brett, I had a chance to visit with Pete and geek out about shoes for a while. He asked me if I had any interest […]
B2R Trail Performance Shoe: Guest Review by Christian Messerschmidt
February 18, 2014 By 18 Comments
I am writing this review of the brand new B2R Trail Performance shoe as I recover from a 50K trail race last weekend. In that race I broke two paramount rules of long-distance running: 1. “Do not go out too fast”- I did, hung with the lead pack for a while, and crashed and burned […]
Scott Trail Rocket: Guest Review by George Harris
February 5, 2014 By 9 Comments
The Trail Rocket is a new racing trail shoe from Scott running. For those of you who don’t know about Scott, they are an outdoor sports company (skiing, mountain biking, motorsports) company that has been in the running business since 2006. Their shoes have evolved considerably (in a good way!) over the past few years, […]
Topo MT (Mountain Trainer) Review: A Non-Tabi Topo Trail Shoe
January 21, 2014 By 15 Comments
Last year Tony Post made a bit of a splash when he left his position as CEO of Vibram USA to launch his own footwear company. Post led Vibram through a period of time when the Fivefingers line of “toe-shoes” were red hot, and left just as VFF sales seemed to be headed off a […]
Biker Nate Reviews the Hoka Rapa Nui 2 Trail and Tarmac
January 18, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Nate Sanel just posted reviews of the Hoka Rapa Nui Tarmac 2 and Rapa Nui Trail 2 over on his blog. I hope to get a pair of these to try as my first Hoka (I have the Mafate but only ran in it once – not bad, but way too much shoe for me), […]
Nate’s Top 5 Trail Running Shoes of 2013
January 4, 2014 By Leave a Comment
Nate just posted his top trail shoes of 2013 over on his blog Biker Nate. He helpfully included a list of all of the trail shoes that he ran in last year, and narrowed that down to his five favorites. To give you a bit of perspective, Nate is a high-mileage trail runner who specializes […]
Dirty Runner: Skechers GoRun Ultra Review
December 16, 2013 By 98 Comments
One of the best things about writing this column has been the opportunity I’ve had to build personal relationships with shoe companies. The one that I work with the most is Skechers. By now I should not have to convince anybody that they are a “real” performance running shoe manufacturer, so I won’t… For me, […]
Newton BoCo AT Trail Running Shoe Review
December 2, 2013 By 13 Comments
Newton doesn’t have a big toehold in the trail running market. Their first attempt at a trail shoe, the Terra Momentum, was basically a slightly modified version of their Sir Isaac trainer (a shoe the I didn’t like at all) and I passed on trying it out. Newton is taking a second crack at a […]
Saucony Peregrine 3 Trail Shoe Review
October 17, 2013 By 18 Comments
My last two runs have been mostly on trails down by the Merrimack River. I like those trails for shoe testing since they include lots of surface variety – sand, a bit of mud, roots, rocks, leaf cover, etc. There’s also a good stretch of crushed rock that I can take if I decide to […]
Merrell AllOut Rush and AllOut Fuse Running Shoe Previews
October 17, 2013 By 25 Comments
(Update: I have now reviewed the Merrell AllOut Rush here) In the comments section of my post yesterday on why I run in minimal shoes, the Merrell AllOut collection came up. I haven’t posted much about this line yet, but I got a chance to try them on back in May and I’m really looking […]
Mizuno Wave Evo Ferus Trail Shoe Review
October 1, 2013 By 26 Comments
I normally hate memory foam style insoles. In fact, I once included them in a list of running shoe design elements that drive me nuts. My usual experience is that they rob the foot of ground feel, but to date I’ve only encountered this type of insole in shoes that already have fairly significant midsole […]
Dirty Runner: Pearl Izumi EM N1 Trail Shoe Review
August 15, 2013 By 2 Comments
I’ve been struggling to write this review. I received this pair of Pearl Izumi EM N1 Trail shoes in May and have run 111 miles in them so far (Disclosure: These shoes were sent to me free of charge as a media sample courtesy of PI). I love these shoes, but when thinking about what […]
Nike Wildhorse, Nike Terra Kiger, Mizuno Ferus: New Low Drop Trail Shoes
July 28, 2013 By 5 Comments
Three new lightweight trail shoes have just hit store shelves from companies that historically have not been big players in the trail market: Nike and Mizuno. First, I’ve been hearing murmurs that Nike has produced some really solid trail shoes in the Wildhorse and Terra Kiger. I have yet to see either in person, but […]
Hoka One One Conquest Preview
July 27, 2013 By 14 Comments
One of the things that I noticed while waiting to pace at the Vermont 100 last weekend was the increased number of runners (and spectators) who were wearing Hoka trail shoes compared to last year at the same event. I don’t have any numbers, but there were significantly more Hokas about, and I’d estimate that […]
