As track & field increases in popularity, the big companies who are competitive in this arena are stepping up (pun intended) their elite level spikes: Adidas, Asics, New Balance, Nike, On Running, et al.
Though some like ASCIS have started making two versions of the same longer distance racing shoe where the upper is different in one then the other one has a more curved midsole thanks to a more curved carbon fiber plate. Also, more runners and sprinters are getting the technology that the road racing models have from a 5k/10k model on up.
Asics has had multiple versions of the same shoe for a few years, for road and track. Different reasons than what I was discussing in this video with elite versions.
The VF2 has a small sweet spot and when you hit it orbits great… but when you don’t, the shoe will ever you down. The VF3 doesn’t do that at all, much bigger sweet spot that makes the shoe great for training and racing. Isn’t as fast as the VF2, on paper, no…. But for most people on most days…. It is, if not faster. I love the VF1/2…. But I’ll take the VF3 any day… plus the fit is so much better for my foot. But this is where an elite version makes sense for Nike. A VF3 Elite would allow tweaks for speed… win/win.
@@SagasuRunning don't get me wrong I agree the VF3 is a great shoe but as you mentioned that pop or sweet spot I think gives the edge to the VF2. It takes some training and conditioning to use the race shoes. Just like driving an automatic versus a manual transmission (I'm referring to prior to recent transmission improvements) sports car required the driver to get use to rpm and shift points to get the full desired control of the car instead of the standard push the pedal and the preprogrammed shift points of the automatic.
This sounds a lot like Nike’s old/current soccer cleats where the pros have “pro only” models that look like the standard cleats, except in this case they will actually sell the Elite model to consumers. Strange they hadn’t done this before, but they are finally being pushed by other brands
Ya, Nike seems to be looking at other product lines and divisions internally for success. I agree, this makes sense. They have done it in the past, but stopped...so yes, they are being pushed hard in the marketplace AND at a corporate level to regain what they once were...
The outsole on Jakob’s Alphaflys looks the same as the ones we saw on early protos, like the ones Suguru Osako wore in Tokyo 2023. It is pretty much a guarantee that Jakob was given a pair (or pairs) of these by Nike to test. Knowing Jakob’s personality, I would not be surprised if he wore those instead of the Blueprint Edition he posted on his instagram page just because they are a much more “exclusive” model. I’m skeptical that this points to another version of the Alphafly 3.
There were a few different outsoles seen in the early AF3 races. The pair Suguru wore in Tokyo in 2023 had more ridges on them, but similar coverage. I went through my folder of early/leak AF3 images and noticed 4 distinct generations of outsole pre-release. I can FULLY see Jakob doing what you said...100%...especially if he thought they were faster.
Talk about timing, we were talking about this in your previous video, having an elite and more mainstream variant of the same shoe, like Adidas is doing with the introduction of the Evo SL. Quite the impressive detective work you did here, though I think it would help Nike a bunch if they could improve their communication and marketing, rather than have us reverse-engineer what they're doing behind the scenes. Hopefully, there'll be some announcements soon. I'm curious what a tiered Vaporfly 4 would like.
This will be an ongoing conversation. For all brands. Nike does need to do a better job communicating their product stories… but I’m trying to be part of that change. Working hard innit actually…. 💪🏻
I commented about Jakob’s A3 in one of your recent videos, if you remember. Outsole is of course different. But I noticed the plate, if ever there’s one, don’t span the whole length of the shoe. It’s in the middle going up. Nothing on the heel part. (Assuming the partially seen black thing in the middle is the plate)
That's right or they've gaved it some additionnal support from a bit of foam in the cut out part or the anble is revised, in all instances we see a bunch of white foam right at the mid point of the cut out towards the heel
Yup, you reminded me of this. Thank you. I talked about the heel foam in the video. I don;'t think it's an different. It's just the angle you see the shoe. The AF3 has those two medial/lateral foam rails that swoop into the forefoot in the midfoot... it's just the angle of his foot that makes it look different. It's the same foam structure though. What we can't see is if the Airpods are tuned differently, if the ZoomX foam is tuned differently or the carbon fiber plate is tuned different. I suspect it's a combo of some of that...
I only have background music in the Intro and Outro.... nowhere else. That has been the case since the first video. Often it's very subtle, especially if the intro is long and I'm talking indepth. If it's just broll I turn the levels up higher...
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, vaporfly 4% was innovation that I want to try my own best and then Vaporfly 3 is more friendly to common ppl but not special anymore. I think adidas back to the track and Nike will catch up like before.
I don't know, the VF3 feels pretty special to me. It still outclasses almost all other super shoes. The Metaspeed Paris, Adios Pro and Alphafly are the only ones in the same conversation...
Nice content as always! And even more so, how exciting it is to see how this will foster innovation for the future! It really makes sense for the Elite tier to be where the highest of innovation is being tested, where as the consumer marked still needs to get what it wants for the whole economy circle to go around. Not that I will ever need to run an elite tier shoe, but for the nerdy engineering people like myself, it’s fascinating to see what aspects are being pushed - weight, geometry, materials etc. Can’t wait for more exciting content in the future! 🥳🙌👟⚙️🔧
I do think a base and elite tier of super shoes will solve the elite adoption issue Nike currently has. Tailoring the same shoe for different types of runners makes sense. Not every model needs it, but some do, like the Dragonfly and Vaporfly.... Exciting indeed.
They just down. For example. The Maxfly 2 and Victory 2, don’t really need (or could have) many refinements. I suspect the Streakfly 2 will be the same. The Dragonfly 2 benefited from the carbon plate and having a base model works given how well used it is for many athletes. The Vaporfly 4 will benefit as I talked about in the video. The Alphafly 3 will benefit for weight savings and next gen materials (eventually). Basically some race shoes are “there” while others can be pushed further….
@@SagasuRunning Ah, I get it. It all comes down to if there “is room for extremification” for that current shoe. So it’s like if there is areas the shoes could be pushed on weight or materials that would benefit an elite, on the cost of durability and, yeah, cost. Right? It makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the explanation mate 🙏👟🏁
Nice video. As far as the elite line goes, track runners from the mid 2010s will remember the Zoom Victory Elites, which were Nike’s first distance spike with a carbon fiber plate, save for some OG Zoom Victory prototypes distributed solely to pros.
Ya, I know the Elite name goes a bit further back with spikes. I think that is where Nike thinks the word “Elite” has a speed heritage. They love things like that…
I think you could not buy a Vaporfly Elite at all. It was something Nike marketed but was only available for their sponsored athletes. This was the high dudgeon period of indignant athletes complaining that their sponsors did not have a competitive shoe and it wasn’t fair. That lead to the world athletics rules we have now which require race shoes to be notionally “for sale” but not really. I think the entire shoe doping complaining was dumb and the best guerrilla advertising campaign that ever happened to Nike. It’s not like we run barefoot and naked. Shoes are performance enhancing equipment. And you can start with Abebe Bikila who ran faster marathons in shoes than barefoot. But I digress. Adidas was selling an elite prototype shoe very much like the Vaporfly Elite called the Evo 1 that they could only make in small batches at a loss maybe just because of this goofy availability rule. Meanwhile other shoes that are legal are absolutely not for sale in any way that I can discern. This whole situation with the equipment you can buy rule seems rather dumb.
I will never forget (or forgive) a certain Asics athlete and her weight lifting husband and their complaints of “cheating” and “should be banned” and “unfair”… yet once the Metaspeeds came out and weren’t bad, it was suddenly ok. That was an ugly period of running. Very Atlas Shrugged’esque. I knew multiple people in NYC with Vaporfly Elites. There were around but you had to know someone who knew someone. Sort of like buying a Ferrari. Vaporfly Flyprints were much more rare in my circles, but around. By that time the reseller bots were online and decimating being able to get a pair. Something it felt like Nike encouraged at the time… Nike will, for sure, sell the elite versions of shoes, at a premium. A premium that will go up as next-gen materials start coming online. I lm actually ok with the “equipment you can buy” rule. I think the result is better than a prototype free-for-all the other way.
@@SagasuRunning But the "equipment you can buy" rule is a farce. You cannot buy a Nike Dev 15. You cannot buy an Adidas Evo 1. I have tremendous respect for both of those athletes and on their clean sport ethos. But on this issue they were just wrong. I get it. It's tough to miss out on an olympic berth and think but-for this one thing it would have happened. On top of that was a lot of history and bad blood with Nike for that particular athlete which I think colored her opinion and thinking. The blame is misplaced though. Team Nike was not cheating (in this instance) rather the shoe companies were fat and lazy cranking out old product. Shoes are PEDs. You often say that Asics in particular is a very innovative company but I see it as quite a conservative Japanese company -- like how Toyota does not want to invest in EV.
@brianreiter5572 You can buy an Evo 1 v1, but you can’t buy a Evo 1 v2 (the one the pros mainly race in with the Conti outsole). I think the rule is poorly worded and brands have found ways to exploit it. That being said the development eventually makes its way into the shoes we can buy. Asics is a very conservative Japanese company. They are rarely ones to jump onto some passing fad in running, like many other brands, and when they do jump onto something they refine it well. Their research facility outside of Kobe Japan is impressive… they often innovate in their own directions too. There does seem to be a split between the head office in Japan and wherever their design/engineering is in the US. This is why Asics has 2, probably 3, competing lines of shoes that all do the same thing.
You “can” buy an Evo 1, but not really. The volume was so low that even if you wanted one you really couldn’t practically buy it. You certainly could never have been assured of being able to buy it. Now they are permanently unstocked. The rule is poorly crafted and the result is a farce. Ostensibly the point was to assure fair competition so that any athlete has access to the same equipment. (A) not the case because the sponsored athletes get pre-release and unobtainium product and (B) elite running is almost entirely sponsored by shoe companies and elite athletes cannot use competing brand product anyway.
@brianreiter5572 I also don’t have issue with limited runs of these shoes. My issue with Nike and the AF3 was their hinge marketing games, not a defined limited number or small batch like Adidas has done. Not everyone “needs” these shoes. I would like a more fair way to distribute the small batches though.
The elite model from this year, which will be available in small quantities, after some changes (maybe a slightly more durable version of the foam or something like that) will become the basic model next year. Adidas came up with it first (although I think it was based on the Vaporfly tactics from years ago), but it's time to introduce it before the rest, because this system simply works.
I don't know. I think Nike is going to use the Elite model(s) to push forward more. Much like Adidas did with the Evo 1. You'll see trickle down tech/geometry in the following generation, but both new generation shoes will be designed together... I'm very curious how this evolves. I'll be watching closely.
This is where Adidas has beaten Nike to the punch and is doing a good job of keeping a similar design language while making distinct differences between the Evo 1 > Pro 4 > Evo SL. Super shoes for the elite and super shoes for the masses allowing everyone to participate and pick what works for them. Hopefully Nike's version and range of their next super shoe cycle translates and is able to compete with Adidas, but right now its Adidas above everyone else with their upcoming range and tech
I don't know about that one. The AP4 needs to prove itself over the Evo 1 and Nike and Adidas keep going back and forth at the top. That likely won't change.
for the AF3s... outsoles differ, upper differs, likely the foams differ slightly, probably something differs with the CF plate... the Dragonfly 2s are rather obvious...
Has Nike hired you as a consultant? Serious question. I think they should. It's hard to believe you put out content like this - and not hear from Nike.
I have no current connection to Nike. I’m just a fan of the brand and their product. I always disclose any brand relationship I have on this channel clearly….
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 87 วันนี้!! คู่เอก "ก้องชัย vs โชคปรีชา"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YN6e7HVnekw/mqdefault.jpg)
As track & field increases in popularity, the big companies who are competitive in this arena are stepping up (pun intended) their elite level spikes: Adidas, Asics, New Balance, Nike, On Running, et al.
Agree. Super spikes are fascinating right now.
Though some like ASCIS have started making two versions of the same longer distance racing shoe where the upper is different in one then the other one has a more curved midsole thanks to a more curved carbon fiber plate. Also, more runners and sprinters are getting the technology that the road racing models have from a 5k/10k model on up.
Asics has had multiple versions of the same shoe for a few years, for road and track. Different reasons than what I was discussing in this video with elite versions.
Your powers of observation are unrivalled! 🤯 I consider myself a pretty big shoe nerd and I totally missed these differences. 👏🏻
I feel like there are even more differences that can't be seen. The ones that are more impactful... working on access to learn all of those secrets.
I think the VF 2 is better than the 3. There seems to be a slight spongy or muted spring in comparison of the 2.
The VF2 has a small sweet spot and when you hit it orbits great… but when you don’t, the shoe will ever you down. The VF3 doesn’t do that at all, much bigger sweet spot that makes the shoe great for training and racing. Isn’t as fast as the VF2, on paper, no…. But for most people on most days…. It is, if not faster.
I love the VF1/2…. But I’ll take the VF3 any day… plus the fit is so much better for my foot.
But this is where an elite version makes sense for Nike. A VF3 Elite would allow tweaks for speed… win/win.
@@SagasuRunning don't get me wrong I agree the VF3 is a great shoe but as you mentioned that pop or sweet spot I think gives the edge to the VF2. It takes some training and conditioning to use the race shoes. Just like driving an automatic versus a manual transmission (I'm referring to prior to recent transmission improvements) sports car required the driver to get use to rpm and shift points to get the full desired control of the car instead of the standard push the pedal and the preprogrammed shift points of the automatic.
Good analogy… 👍🏻
@@SagasuRunning keep up the good work. Your content is awesome. The attention to detail and your affinity to shoe design is admirable.
@Daedcicar Thank you. 🙏🏻 I appreciate the support.
This sounds a lot like Nike’s old/current soccer cleats where the pros have “pro only” models that look like the standard cleats, except in this case they will actually sell the Elite model to consumers. Strange they hadn’t done this before, but they are finally being pushed by other brands
Ya, Nike seems to be looking at other product lines and divisions internally for success. I agree, this makes sense. They have done it in the past, but stopped...so yes, they are being pushed hard in the marketplace AND at a corporate level to regain what they once were...
The outsole on Jakob’s Alphaflys looks the same as the ones we saw on early protos, like the ones Suguru Osako wore in Tokyo 2023. It is pretty much a guarantee that Jakob was given a pair (or pairs) of these by Nike to test. Knowing Jakob’s personality, I would not be surprised if he wore those instead of the Blueprint Edition he posted on his instagram page just because they are a much more “exclusive” model. I’m skeptical that this points to another version of the Alphafly 3.
There were a few different outsoles seen in the early AF3 races. The pair Suguru wore in Tokyo in 2023 had more ridges on them, but similar coverage. I went through my folder of early/leak AF3 images and noticed 4 distinct generations of outsole pre-release.
I can FULLY see Jakob doing what you said...100%...especially if he thought they were faster.
Talk about timing, we were talking about this in your previous video, having an elite and more mainstream variant of the same shoe, like Adidas is doing with the introduction of the Evo SL. Quite the impressive detective work you did here, though I think it would help Nike a bunch if they could improve their communication and marketing, rather than have us reverse-engineer what they're doing behind the scenes. Hopefully, there'll be some announcements soon. I'm curious what a tiered Vaporfly 4 would like.
This will be an ongoing conversation. For all brands. Nike does need to do a better job communicating their product stories… but I’m trying to be part of that change. Working hard innit actually…. 💪🏻
I commented about Jakob’s A3 in one of your recent videos, if you remember.
Outsole is of course different. But I noticed the plate, if ever there’s one, don’t span the whole length of the shoe.
It’s in the middle going up. Nothing on the heel part.
(Assuming the partially seen black thing in the middle is the plate)
That's right or they've gaved it some additionnal support from a bit of foam in the cut out part or the anble is revised, in all instances we see a bunch of white foam right at the mid point of the cut out towards the heel
Yup, you reminded me of this. Thank you.
I talked about the heel foam in the video. I don;'t think it's an different. It's just the angle you see the shoe. The AF3 has those two medial/lateral foam rails that swoop into the forefoot in the midfoot... it's just the angle of his foot that makes it look different. It's the same foam structure though.
What we can't see is if the Airpods are tuned differently, if the ZoomX foam is tuned differently or the carbon fiber plate is tuned different. I suspect it's a combo of some of that...
See my comment here and watch the video for explanation....
@@SagasuRunning
Yes, saw it. Thank you.
Pretty sure they won’t be available to the running public.
@Amtcboy Likely not these… but eventually the two tiers will.
Listening from my earpod, I’ve just realised you have background music all this time😂
I only have background music in the Intro and Outro.... nowhere else. That has been the case since the first video. Often it's very subtle, especially if the intro is long and I'm talking indepth. If it's just broll I turn the levels up higher...
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, vaporfly 4% was innovation that I want to try my own best and then Vaporfly 3 is more friendly to common ppl but not special anymore. I think adidas back to the track and Nike will catch up like before.
I don't know, the VF3 feels pretty special to me. It still outclasses almost all other super shoes. The Metaspeed Paris, Adios Pro and Alphafly are the only ones in the same conversation...
Nice content as always! And even more so, how exciting it is to see how this will foster innovation for the future! It really makes sense for the Elite tier to be where the highest of innovation is being tested, where as the consumer marked still needs to get what it wants for the whole economy circle to go around. Not that I will ever need to run an elite tier shoe, but for the nerdy engineering people like myself, it’s fascinating to see what aspects are being pushed - weight, geometry, materials etc. Can’t wait for more exciting content in the future! 🥳🙌👟⚙️🔧
I do think a base and elite tier of super shoes will solve the elite adoption issue Nike currently has. Tailoring the same shoe for different types of runners makes sense. Not every model needs it, but some do, like the Dragonfly and Vaporfly....
Exciting indeed.
@@SagasuRunning Interesting. Can you explain why you don’t think every Nike racing shoe needs it? 👟🏁
They just down. For example. The Maxfly 2 and Victory 2, don’t really need (or could have) many refinements. I suspect the Streakfly 2 will be the same. The Dragonfly 2 benefited from the carbon plate and having a base model works given how well used it is for many athletes. The Vaporfly 4 will benefit as I talked about in the video. The Alphafly 3 will benefit for weight savings and next gen materials (eventually). Basically some race shoes are “there” while others can be pushed further….
@@SagasuRunning Ah, I get it. It all comes down to if there “is room for extremification” for that current shoe. So it’s like if there is areas the shoes could be pushed on weight or materials that would benefit an elite, on the cost of durability and, yeah, cost. Right?
It makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the explanation mate 🙏👟🏁
@Skjoldborg8 Yup, what would make a fast shoe, faster…basically. Without being an entirely new shoe. Geometry or material tweaks.
Nice video. As far as the elite line goes, track runners from the mid 2010s will remember the Zoom Victory Elites, which were Nike’s first distance spike with a carbon fiber plate, save for some OG Zoom Victory prototypes distributed solely to pros.
Ya, I know the Elite name goes a bit further back with spikes. I think that is where Nike thinks the word “Elite” has a speed heritage. They love things like that…
Nice work sir 👌🏽
Thank you. 🤙🏻
I think you could not buy a Vaporfly Elite at all. It was something Nike marketed but was only available for their sponsored athletes. This was the high dudgeon period of indignant athletes complaining that their sponsors did not have a competitive shoe and it wasn’t fair. That lead to the world athletics rules we have now which require race shoes to be notionally “for sale” but not really. I think the entire shoe doping complaining was dumb and the best guerrilla advertising campaign that ever happened to Nike. It’s not like we run barefoot and naked. Shoes are performance enhancing equipment. And you can start with Abebe Bikila who ran faster marathons in shoes than barefoot.
But I digress.
Adidas was selling an elite prototype shoe very much like the Vaporfly Elite called the Evo 1 that they could only make in small batches at a loss maybe just because of this goofy availability rule. Meanwhile other shoes that are legal are absolutely not for sale in any way that I can discern.
This whole situation with the equipment you can buy rule seems rather dumb.
I will never forget (or forgive) a certain Asics athlete and her weight lifting husband and their complaints of “cheating” and “should be banned” and “unfair”… yet once the Metaspeeds came out and weren’t bad, it was suddenly ok.
That was an ugly period of running. Very Atlas Shrugged’esque.
I knew multiple people in NYC with Vaporfly Elites. There were around but you had to know someone who knew someone. Sort of like buying a Ferrari.
Vaporfly Flyprints were much more rare in my circles, but around. By that time the reseller bots were online and decimating being able to get a pair. Something it felt like Nike encouraged at the time…
Nike will, for sure, sell the elite versions of shoes, at a premium. A premium that will go up as next-gen materials start coming online.
I lm actually ok with the “equipment you can buy” rule. I think the result is better than a prototype free-for-all the other way.
@@SagasuRunning But the "equipment you can buy" rule is a farce. You cannot buy a Nike Dev 15. You cannot buy an Adidas Evo 1.
I have tremendous respect for both of those athletes and on their clean sport ethos. But on this issue they were just wrong. I get it. It's tough to miss out on an olympic berth and think but-for this one thing it would have happened. On top of that was a lot of history and bad blood with Nike for that particular athlete which I think colored her opinion and thinking. The blame is misplaced though. Team Nike was not cheating (in this instance) rather the shoe companies were fat and lazy cranking out old product. Shoes are PEDs.
You often say that Asics in particular is a very innovative company but I see it as quite a conservative Japanese company -- like how Toyota does not want to invest in EV.
@brianreiter5572 You can buy an Evo 1 v1, but you can’t buy a Evo 1 v2 (the one the pros mainly race in with the Conti outsole). I think the rule is poorly worded and brands have found ways to exploit it. That being said the development eventually makes its way into the shoes we can buy.
Asics is a very conservative Japanese company. They are rarely ones to jump onto some passing fad in running, like many other brands, and when they do jump onto something they refine it well. Their research facility outside of Kobe Japan is impressive… they often innovate in their own directions too. There does seem to be a split between the head office in Japan and wherever their design/engineering is in the US. This is why Asics has 2, probably 3, competing lines of shoes that all do the same thing.
You “can” buy an Evo 1, but not really. The volume was so low that even if you wanted one you really couldn’t practically buy it. You certainly could never have been assured of being able to buy it. Now they are permanently unstocked.
The rule is poorly crafted and the result is a farce. Ostensibly the point was to assure fair competition so that any athlete has access to the same equipment. (A) not the case because the sponsored athletes get pre-release and unobtainium product and (B) elite running is almost entirely sponsored by shoe companies and elite athletes cannot use competing brand product anyway.
@brianreiter5572 I also don’t have issue with limited runs of these shoes. My issue with Nike and the AF3 was their hinge marketing games, not a defined limited number or small batch like Adidas has done. Not everyone “needs” these shoes. I would like a more fair way to distribute the small batches though.
Take a look at the shoes Jacob Ingebritsen shoes when he raced halfmarathon in Kopenhagen. Look at the outsole! =)
Take a look at the thumbnail and watch the video… 🤔
The elite model from this year, which will be available in small quantities, after some changes (maybe a slightly more durable version of the foam or something like that) will become the basic model next year.
Adidas came up with it first (although I think it was based on the Vaporfly tactics from years ago), but it's time to introduce it before the rest, because this system simply works.
I don't know. I think Nike is going to use the Elite model(s) to push forward more. Much like Adidas did with the Evo 1. You'll see trickle down tech/geometry in the following generation, but both new generation shoes will be designed together...
I'm very curious how this evolves. I'll be watching closely.
This is where Adidas has beaten Nike to the punch and is doing a good job of keeping a similar design language while making distinct differences between the Evo 1 > Pro 4 > Evo SL. Super shoes for the elite and super shoes for the masses allowing everyone to participate and pick what works for them. Hopefully Nike's version and range of their next super shoe cycle translates and is able to compete with Adidas, but right now its Adidas above everyone else with their upcoming range and tech
I agree. Adidas definitely reset the bar with the Evo 1 and their strategy seems (fairly) clear moving forward.
The pro 4 is already here. If Nike is not doing something, there will be nothing left for them😢
I don't know about that one. The AP4 needs to prove itself over the Evo 1 and Nike and Adidas keep going back and forth at the top. That likely won't change.
What am i missing here?? The shoes are EXACTLY the same?
for the AF3s... outsoles differ, upper differs, likely the foams differ slightly, probably something differs with the CF plate... the Dragonfly 2s are rather obvious...
Has Nike hired you as a consultant? Serious question. I think they should. It's hard to believe you put out content like this - and not hear from Nike.
I have no current connection to Nike. I’m just a fan of the brand and their product.
I always disclose any brand relationship I have on this channel clearly….
Without all the word vomit and repeating yourself constantly; This video could have easily been under 6 minutes.
If you watch it on 2x it almost is 6mins. 🤔Thank you for the feedback. It’s always appreciated. 👍🏻
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