With a lighter upper and a redesigned outsole, this is the fastest shoe you can buy. xxxxxx
Dan Roe/RW Test Editor
We’re on the roads outside our office in Pennsylvania to test the Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next%.
There’s 15 percent more foam underfoot.
The offset has come down from 11mm to 8mm.
It promises to grip the road better and most importantly be more comfortable over 26.2 miles.
This shoe is called the Next%, not the 5%, because Nike tested it and found that the increase in running economy was between four and five percent.
Now all this new tech is very exciting, but to find out how it feels compared to the old Vaporfly 4%, we’re going to run 800 meters in both shoes at Eliud Kipchoge’s marathon pace and I’m going to tell you how they feel differently on my feet.
(Dan runs in 4%)
So obviously I didn’t make that look as good as Eliud Kipchoge does, but, that being said, the original Zoom Vaporfly 4% feels fantastic at that 4:38 pace range.
Easily the most cushioned racing shoe I’ve ever been in.
That carbon fiber plate really keeps your ankle in check and just keeps that forward roll on that 11mm offset, generating tons of momentum.
We’re curious to see whether that happens with the 8mm offset on the next shoe, so let’s go find out.
(Dan runs in Next%)
These shoes feel a lot different.
These shoes have a lot more foam underfoot.
I imagine heel strikers might like these even more because the moment you get off the heel, that extra foam comes into play and you don’t have to work that hard to press it down and the rebound that you get from it off the front of your stride is much more pronounced than it is on the old shoe.
I also like the new lacing.
The old shoe, I did feel like I had to get it down pretty tight to get that lock down heel fit.
Combination of moving the laces laterally and Nike has thickened the foam pod in the heel, makes it so I didn’t have to overtighten it to get the fit I wanted.
The stability feels about the same as the other shoe.
They feel like a tall shoe, certainly, I wouldn’t want to run super uneven ground in them.
Making kind of tight turns at speed felt totally fine.
We measured the shoes, they’re the same width if you’re talking about the rubber under the forefoot, but there’s more foam on the outsides of the rubber on the new shoe.
That might come into play with offsetting the higher stack height, but it felt totally stable at speed.
You really don’t feel a lot through the original shoe just because of all that foam, but I felt like I was more on top of the pebbles rather than them sort of compressing into the shoe.
You really don’t need much rubber in the rear of the shoe, you don’t spend a lot of time there, and the rubber that you do get in the forefoot feels like plenty, at least on the dry pavement that we’ve got today.
It’s important to note that you don’t have to be a world-class marathoner to enjoy these shoes.
We tested them at Eliud’s pace, but I’ve also been running six, seven, eight-minute miles in them.
They feel really good.
You don’t get quite as much of the rebound sensation when you’re not leaning forward, coming off your toes as much, but they’re still really comfortable.
The Next% will cost $275 when it goes on sale April 28th via the Nike Run Club app and it will be available in larger quantities sometime this summer.
Whether they’re worth $275 to you is a question that you’ll have to answer, but if you do want the edge, I will say that these are the nicest racing shoes I’ve ever run in.
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