Dathan Ritzenhein talks and he talks big: "I really believe that we (On) have the best spike on the market right now."

rojo, the denizens of this Board haven't worn the shoe in question. They don't know anything about it other than what it looks like. Your readers aren't the ones to ask. They are Nike-loyal and will post (read below) that they have by far the best spikes. It"s the brand they've worn.

One thing is certain - Ritz enjoys the sound of his own voice.

Enthusiasm. The man has Enthusiasm. A zest for life. It springs forth through his mouth-hole. The mouth-hole of faith and fatherly love. Are we crystal here?

These shoes are apparently for rich middle aged soccer moms, so it only follows that Ritz, Monson, Norris etc are soccer moms of the means.

BREAKING: Man paid by shoe company says company's shoes are good.

But, to be fair, the coffee club boys have also given similar compliments to the shoes. On their coffee club podcast, for the most part, they compliment the On products they like and don't feel obligated to endorse all products.

With respect to the development of On track spikes, the boys mentioned that their feet would "get hot" during the early phases of testing...but recently they have been discussing the improvements On made based on their feedback and how much they like the spikes. I think Morgan and Olli both said that the spike was fast, competitive with Nike, and might actually be better. While biased, they shared a similar sentiment to what Dathan said in the T&F News article. Their excitement for these spikes, coupled with their silence about a lot of other On products, makes me think that these spikes may be the real deal.

He can do so because it's not he who is racing in them, and his income is essentially derived from performance-driven marketing of ON products. He's a good corporate soldier.

As for

You can "take the time" and get product to market "within half the amount of time" when you can obtain, tear apart, and reverse engineer product that big companies developed and already got to market far ahead of yours. If the design looks slick, then they can get some high schoolers to switch from Brooks and that's a win for them.

Will the on spikes be $300?

His comment is misleading because it’s not actually in the market. I’d probably buy a pair to compare to the dragonfly if they were but so far they seem to only be trickling pairs out to select people (young twins wore them in a workout video; Sophia G was wearing them in a recent race, etc).

Anyone know when they will ACTUALLY be “on the market”?

It’s not “on the market” at all. There has been an OAC team for 2-3 years, and still nothing released that is readily available to the public.

Exactly. Taking no position on the matter myself:

”It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Upton Sinclair

How is this different than the $275 Alphafly’s; $250 Adios Pros, Hyperions, and Metaspeeds everyone shells out money for?

FWIW, as someone mentioned, the athletes have been saying that since last year. And since they had a basis for comparison (having been free to wear anything they wanted to before the On spikes were available), they would presumably know.

Obviously, the On athletes have some bias in the messaging, but that's countered by the fact that (substantively) they were reportedly highly involved in the development process, and their livelihoods depend on them racing in the best spikes possible. With the On spikes being newer than (e.g.) the Dragonflies, there's a good chance the On spikes are better.

What's he supposed to say? He works for the company correct? Just doing business.

If it is the best spike "on the market", why is ON not selling them?

So...what are you going to say about tracksmith? Far pricier than ON and not new tech at all. Ons are super trendy among non athletes but the again so is Nike. It's a good shoe.

Unless you believe that Nike is truly that far ahead of everyone else in material science with ZoomX it's silly to think that On wouldn't make a better spike. They have the late mover advantage of just reverse engineering everyone else's super spikes, a small team that can quickly iterate with real-world elite athlete testing to make it slightly better than competitors spikes, and their market niche is such that the end result really doesn't need to be mass appeal.

What do we reckon is more evil, Nike, Berkshire Hathaway (Brooks), or Swiss wall-street company ON?

Probably Nike, but the others suck too.

Would be great to see more support for small private USA manufacturers — even if (and perhaps especially if) they don’t make ‘super shoes.’