Shoe Tech Specs
Most people assign shoe brands into two buckets, either 1) to wear or 2) to stay away.
“LOL if you recommend X brand”.
“[Redacted] Brand is all I wear”.
As with everything, it is much deeper and more nuanced than assigning a binary rating to an entire brand. For example, Saucony may create better trail shoes, where Nike makes higher quality race day shoes. Or one year a certain model from Hoka might not worth be buying, and a competitor has put out a better shoe instead.
This is where it’s important not to fall in love with a brand, but to understand the technical specs behind every shoe that a brand puts out.
You end up seeing through the marketing and aesthetics for what the shoe really is. A sum of all its parts. Midsole compound + outsole + stack height + upper comfortability.
Soon, all you will see are the tech specs the shoe offers:
Heel to toe drop
Midsole compound
Stack height
Outsole durability & grip
Weight
Comfortability of upper
This will inevitably lead you to owning multiple shoes from multiple brands—each serving a different purpose.
Here I aim to show you different scenarios where shoe specs matter, examples of shoes fit for the environment and circumstances, along with why they matter there.