Race Day: Which carbon shoe works best for me?

Nike has started the trend of carbon shoes in competitions and really carried it to the masses. Since that, almost all major brands have established competition shoes with carbon soles on the market. Are you unsure which one is the right fit for you? Then keep reading. We compare the latest models of the brands and show the differences.

The current models differ mostly in terms of the drop: the range goes from 5 to a double drop of 10mm. Most models are exactly in between with 8mm. The weight of the shoes also differs. The Cloudboom Echo is the heaviest shoe weighing a still very light 220g, the FuelCell RC Elite v2 with 183g is the lightest shoe in our offer. It is also noticeable that almost all brands rely on a continuous carbon plate throughout the shoe.

In our table, we have summarized the most important key data with cushioning, material, drop, weight and type of carbon plate:

	ZoomX Vaporfly Next%2	Adizero Adios Pro 2	ASICS Metaspeed Sky	PUMA Deviate Nitro Elite Racer	The North Face Flight Vectiv
Carbonplate	Full-length	Energyrods	Full-length	Full-length	Full-length
Foam	ZoomX	Lightstrike Pro	Flytefoam Blast Turbo™	Nitro Foam	SurfaceCTRL
Upper	Engineered mesh	Celermesh 2.0	Multi-directional mesh	seamless, breathable	breathable
Drop	8mm	10mm	5mm	8 mm	6 mm
Weight	187g	215g	199g	198 g	285 g

	EndorphinPro2	CloudboomEcho	FuelCellRCElitev2	Nike Air Zoom AlphaFLY NEXT%	CRAFT CTM Ultra Carbon 2
Carbonplate	Full-length	Carbon-infused Speedboard®	Full-length	Full-length	Full-length
Foam	Pwrrun PB	Cloudtec, Helion	FuelCell	ZoomX	Nitro
Upper	Mesh	Engineered mesh	Knit	Engineered mesh	seamless, breathable
Drop	8 mm	9 mm	8 mm	8 mm	8 mm
Weight	213 g	220 g	183 g	187g	198 g

As always, you can find all these models at Top4Running. So, which running shoe would you like?

Shop here!