NO Body has caught up to Nike . Vaporfly's are still the best design and fastest shoe

unregistered nobody wrote:

long baller wrote:

I’ve never heard the term toothpaste back in the tube . I think hardloper had a more relatable phase.

"You can't put toothpaste back in the tube" is definitely a saying that I've heard.

“You can’t unring the bell” might also be appropriate here, though the meaning is a little different.

I think the Endorphin Pro is just about as quick. Maybe preferred for a high mileage person or pro over the VF (?). Could see it being superior to the NEXT in 5k-HM but not above.

No cush though. I will take the Endorphin Pro for HM+

I don't have any faith that another company will or already have made something better than the Next% in the near future. If you think a small potatoes company is going to come up with something game changing you are a fool. All MAJOR innovation in the past 30 years has come from Nike and Adidas. Saucony wanted to take all of their inventory fully online two years ago and you think a company making those cost cutting moves is going to invest the necessary R&D to make a great racer that will barely make any money? Total BS. They had Jared Ward working on the side helping to do the research. They did the best they could do with the money they had and credit to them probably did better than any other non Nike company. If that shoe was as good it wouldn't be $50-$75 less than Nike's shoes.

Of course some will point to Molly Seidel and say that the shoe is just as good. That is a farce. It's a championship race. In those conditions with varied technology and a difficult course...you can't just chalk it up to shoes. That is one race. VF have dominated in many WMM. That's a much larger sample size than one Olympic trials. I feel sorry for Hoka because they aren't even talked about because we know 100% their shoes aren't as good. But Saucony gets a pass...why? Because some old dudes started wearing them 10 years ago so they're a reputable brand?

They have done jack all for the last few years. Every model they've come out with until the current Triumph has been a disappointment and way too narrow for their standards yet I STILL get people coming in saying that they fit great.

So we just go back to the old argument about springs, just ignoring all the over technology added to shoes over the last 20 years which does the same thing to a lesser degree.

Is it cost most people don’t like?

Is it most people are no longer “competitive” and others are beating their times?

Is it the shoes don’t work for you?

Your favourite runner did not qualify for something?

Come on, either race is a barefoot flat or a clunker of a heavy single density EVA shoe when you next race, let you into a secret, no one cares about your performance, a very few actually care about elite runner performance outside our bubble of runners

The carbon fibre plate is a spring, in that when you load up the plate and bend it, it forcefully returns to its natural position. This provides a propulsion force to further enhance the natural push off.

Not a lawyer, but I have worked on patent law, admittedly not with regard to athletic shoes.

But here's why simply putting a plate in a shoe doesn't break Nike's patent:

1. They don't own a patent on the composition of the material.

2. They are not the first to develop a midsole plate (look up Fila and Paul Tergat)

3. Because of this, the innovation that Nike could patent is the curvature of the plate. A curvature that appears to be optimal to improve running economy.

Adidas didn't develop the carbon rods because they feared being sued if they used a plate, they developed them because they needed to innovate. Adidas have just released a shoe with a full length carbon plate, the Adizero Pro, and by all accounts it's garbage.

If Nike could have sued every company that uses a full length plate they would have. They have the resources and would want to protect their place in the market. They haven't because they can't.

sizlin wrote:

The others companies will never catch up in that sense. How many East Africans do HOKA, Brooks, Saucony, New Balance sponsor? Collectively a big fat 0.

Yeah, but we're not even seeing their US and European athletes improve their PRs significantly. If their own super shoes were effective surely we'd see people like Fauble and Ward driving down their PRs.

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

Of course some will point to Molly Seidel and say that the shoe is just as good. That is a farce. It's a championship race. In those conditions with varied technology and a difficult course...you can't just chalk it up to shoes. That is one race. VF have dominated in many WMM. That's a much larger sample size than one Olympic trials. I feel sorry for Hoka because they aren't even talked about because we know 100% their shoes aren't as good. But Saucony gets a pass...why? Because some old dudes started wearing them 10 years ago so they're a reputable brand?

They have done jack all for the last few years. Every model they've come out with until the current Triumph has been a disappointment and way too narrow for their standards yet I STILL get people coming in saying that they fit great.

I don’t love saucony either but the Endorphin is prettt good. Only other PEBA + carbon racer. Jared Ward noted a 4.4% economy increase. It’s firmer than the VF but it’s up there with the original and the NEXT. I would still take the NEXT but don’t think it’s a huge difference. Haven’t tried the AFN%

I've worn 4 or 5 versions of the Zoom Fly, plus the carbon x for a few workouts and long runs. I defintiely prefer the zoom fly (any edition, especially the fkyknit though). I love that shoe for tempos and quick long runs.

I've also gone through a pair of Carbon X and found even the heavier Zoom Fly 3 was the faster shoe, whilst the 4% was on another level to both. It's a good training shoe, but not as fast.

Both running and cycling have an extensive price range for all equipment. You can enjoy both sports regardless of what you spend on gear. That being said, in cycling you have the option of buying very good used equipment at a much lower cost. That isn't really an option with running.

Ward himself gained 4.4% but we know there's a range with these shoes with an independent study showing that some athletes gain up to 8% in the Next%. The Nikes were able to get from 2-8% and the only other data point available on the Endorphins was Molly Huddle gaining only 1%. Huddle is a special case because of her unequal leg lengths that apparently make it difficult to create a shoe for her. Personally I haven't tried on the Alphafly but most say the shoe has significantly more bounce than the Next%.

Most of you need to know that the shoe does contain a spring. There are many types of springs, not just the coil spring you’re thinking of. There are leaf springs, flat springs, torsion springs, etc.

If it bends and returns energy, no matter what shape, it’s a spring.

One guy seems to to know this. The rest of you are morons.

The shoe does contain a spring. The bent carbon fiber plate, stores and returns energy. That is a spring

springer wizard wrote:

Most of you need to know that the shoe does contain a spring. There are many types of springs, not just the coil spring you’re thinking of. There are leaf springs, flat springs, torsion springs, etc.

If it bends and returns energy, no matter what shape, it’s a spring.

One guy seems to to know this. The rest of you are morons.

The shoe does contain a spring. The bent carbon fiber plate, stores and returns energy. That is a spring

every shoe that contains foam or rubber is also a spring shoe then. so what

Not all springs are equal. That’s what.

The problem (or opportunity, if you're the enterprising sort) is not that the shoes "ruin the sport" per se, but that they split it. There are lots of sports where the athlete celebrates their win with the team that developed the gear, like formula 1, moto GP, etc. That's where this ends. Nike's party line on their technology is that they should not "return more energy than the athlete puts in". Here's that reasoning in action at the marathon trials earlier this year: (fast-forward to 20min 15sec for the Nike rep's bit).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wvrpk909CU&t=20m15s

This, which is essentially the "spring" argument that's been re-hashed to death on this site, is so obviously ridiculous to me that I can't believe they provide it. Speed skates allow an athlete to travel around 30 mph for 10 kilometers and they certainly don't return extra energy. You get what you put in. At that point however your record (notice I didn't say your finishing position) belongs more to the gear than to your training, and the sport fractures into different formulas. I personally think this would be awesome to see, but I can also see how some people would want to preserve a "pure" version that has some connection with the human tradition of the sport and the athletes who have run competitively for thousands of years.

Starting to find this topic on shoes tedious at this stage. The people arguing against them are either slow or can't afford the product.

The people defending them are in denial, they probably couldn't reach targets without them, be it sub 3 or better. And they want to believe that the shoe doesn't help..... let me state that it does....

The problem i have it's the company that makes them is a stain on athletics, from Lance Armstrong, the NOP and the Mary Cain scandal, they are a tainted brand that has the governing body allowing it to make shoes that clearly have changed the sport to something i don't like. We are seeing large groups of runners racing well past the 40k mark in major marathons without any great stress.

This shouldn't be