Womens Running Shoe Nike Free Rn Commuter 2017 Review

Due to the extreme flex and compliant nature of the Free sole technology, the Costless RN mimics the experience of barefoot running since the foot is allowed to flex naturally with the ground topography.

According to Nike, the Free line was developed after learning that Stanford athletes were trading barefoot on the golf class.

Therefore the flex of the sole has been designed to specifically mimic the biomechanics of a barefoot running experience.

The issue is a shoe that feels natural on the anxiety and and is a joy to run in. I tested the Complimentary RN on dissimilar surfaces, including wood, basic trail, and asphalt.

Nike Free RN General Info

When I beginning laced them up, my first impression was that the Free RN feels more like a slipper than a running shoe.

In a mode, it reminded me of the La Sportiva Vertical K, which feels a scrap like a climbing shoe in the manner information technology wraps around your human foot.

The Free RN sole is very flexible, in this regard I compared it to a minimalist shoe, such every bit the Inov-8 Roclite (I run with the 285'southward occasionally). However, dissimilar the 285's, the Complimentary RN has cushioning forth the foot.

The Gratuitous RN weights in at eight.55 ounces (men's size 10), which is lightweight, in-line with minimalist running shoes.

The extreme flexibility of the Free RN derives not only from the flexible sole, but besides from the overall uppers and heel pattern. Unlike many running shoes, the heel of the Costless RN is not stiff since there's no plastic heel cup.

Instead the heel is fabric and cream, with a concluding running from the top of the heel to the midsole.

The shoe is so flexible that you lot tin can even pull the Gratuitous RN on like a slipper if the laces are tied. This complete design defines a running experience quite close to barefoot running on grass.

I run into the Complimentary RN (and associated Nike Complimentary shoe designs) as an of import part of the evolution of the minimalist and barefoot running shoes design from the by decade, which take included notable shoe designs from companies such equally Inov-8, Merrell (http://world wide web.merrell.com/en/barefoot/), and the Vibram Five Fingers (https://us.vibram.com/shop/fivefingers/men/) line, where the goal was to offering projection for running over different surfaces, while assuasive the feeling of barefoot running.

This often meant reduced cushioning, and required some fourth dimension for your anxiety to strengthen, since the minimalist shoes generally offer less support than traditional running shoes. This was largely due to the materials used and the sole design.

In social club to mimic the barefoot feeling, sole designs focused on being very thin in order to reduce sole stiffness, thereby assuasive better compliance between sole flexing and foot flexing.

Therefore, the high flexibility of the sole came at the expense of minimal cushioning.

Now, this would exist ok for soft surfaces, but on hard surfaces it would be more uncomfortable and for me personally, would reduce the distances I could run, even though I very much like the barefoot feeling of running.

Transitioning to a minimalist shoe would as well have some time, since a runner would demand to build upwardly their foot strength, or run a risk injury if they went from a high cushioned shoe to a minimalist and decided to run a marathon without allowing time to get used to the minimalist pattern.

This is where I see the interesting value that the Costless RN brings, it combines the natural barefoot feeling with cushioning.

The combination of high sole flexibility with a light weight design and cushioning ways y'all can really apply the Gratuitous RN as a general running shoe and maintain the barefoot running feeling.

At first I didn't take a lot of exceptions running on the Free RN on asphalt, every bit this is where my past experiences with minimalist shoes have come upward shot.

However, I've been quite impressed by the power of the Complimentary RN to cushion on asphalt while maintaining freedom of movement.

On the trail the Costless RN works well if you're on a normal trail, simply you tin can almost guarantee that minor rocks volition get wedged in-betwixt the openings of the sole, and additionally yous'll feel larger rocks as you run on them.

Running over a soft forrest floor is a squishy experience, and there's basically no ability to stop from sliding given the lack of treads on the sole (even so, this was fully expected).

Nike Free RN Sole Unit

The softness of the Gratuitous RN sole makes the running experience a bit like walking on soft spring grass or fresh snow, in that you lot feel the ground below your human foot, but it's very soft and inviting.

Nike Free RN – Sole

Of form, since it is a shoe and not snow, the shoe moves with you while you run. Due to the softness of the sole and the lack of potent treads, the Gratis RN is not an ideal shoe for mountains or climbing up steep trails.

You can run with the Free RN on moderate trails, simply it's more suited to flat footing including concrete and asphalt. The softness of the sole volition likely non be durable enough for excessive corruption on hard trails.

Of grade, due to the high sole flexibility, you really wouldn't want to use the Free RN on hard trail adventures. Since the sole is fabricated of cream, there is cushioning forth the full sole, making it flexible and shock absorbing.

The flexibility of the sole is due to the engineered cutting patterns, which run forth the sole in a triangular pattern (Nike calls information technology auxetic pattern).

Cutting fabric is an piece of cake manner to build flexibility into a shoe sole, and may often be found in the sole region, only non always in a identify where a person can run across it easily.

Basically it's an easy style to engineer dissimilar regions of bending stiffnesses using one material, as opposed to trying to build a sole from multiple materials of different stiffnesses (which would also be much more expensive from a production viewpoint).

For example, the Salomon S-LAB Ten Alp Carbon GTX mountaineering kicking (http://xalp.salomon.com/de/) includes a carbon chassis layer in the sole design, which includes cut in the cloth along the sole, which gives expert torsional rigidity along with flexibility forth the human foot length.

This is as well how you lot can apply a light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation cutter to make a wooden tie (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:707915). Also, I've seen cuts engineered into Mammut trail shoes in gild to localize insole flexibility. The point is, you engineer the desired material flexibility fifty-fifty with a stiff base material.

Now, as compared to those examples, the reward of the Gratuitous RN is that the cutting regions define loftier flexibility in the foam of the sole.

The triangular pattern means that in that location is an even distribution in the stiffness reduction (due to the cutting lines) in the iii primary directions of the triangular cutting regions, which allows the sole to flex along the natural means your pes deforms over the basis.

And so, overall the sole is a nice balance between price and flexibility. I'1000 a big fan of flexible soles, especially if they flex comfortably at the brawl of my foot.

I have found that if the flex point of a shoe is besides far forward, toward the tip of my toes, that it increases the chance of my toe nails being injured and falling off afterwards distances beyond xxx km. And then, overall I've quite happy with the flex profile of the Free RN and the softness of the sole.

Nike Complimentary RN Upper Info

The Flymesh uppers are colorful, breathable, and flexible. The pattern lines are clean and free of excess material. I don't see any obvious stress points that would pb to premature failure of the uppers structure.

The lacing system works well to tighten over my foot, but I have had the laces come undone on a few occasions. It would be ideal to supercede the laces with i that grip better.

Nike Gratis RN – Top

The Flywire cable system loops through the laces and then wraps effectually the sides of the human foot to secure it to the midsole of the shoe. I've found the Flywire to piece of work well in securing my foot in both the Free RN and the Vomero 11 shoes.

I'm generally not a fan of lacing systems where the laces loop through a nylon material, since I have found on some past shoes that failure could occur over fourth dimension due to the friction of the laces against the looping material connecting to the uppers.

If the laces get through nylon to be secured to the shoe, and so over time the lace may cut through the nylon.

However, this seems to be mitigated in the design, since the Flywire cables appear to be made of a stiff and loftier tensile strength textile, and with a hard surface, should minimize friction article of clothing between the Flywire and the laces over time.

The reward is that the laces are directly in contact with the Flywire cables that then wrap around the foot. This, combined with the soft uppers really allows for a slipper-similar feel and very good conformity between the foot and the shoe.

Given the softness of the uppers material, there is not a lot of construction to the shoe with regards to torsion of the foot.

Therefore, yous tin can wait some movement of your foot in the shoe when negotiating technical trail features, but information technology's not an issue when running on normal surfaces.

Nike Free RN Conclusions

Low-cal, flexible and cushioned. Those are the words that come to my mind when thinking of the Complimentary RN. The Costless RN is a fun shoe, a pair yous pick up for a quick run and might additionally wear in the city on a warm summer day.

My pes doesn't feel constrained in the Free RN. It's a shoe you can imagine calling your comfortable shoe to relax in and enjoy life. Beyond running, the Free RN is a wonderful lifestyle shoe.

The bold styling too make it a nice choice for hipster mode remixing, as they pair nicely with grayness slacks or CEP running socks.

Overall I similar the Free RN. It provides a running experience close to barefoot, but offers cushioning on hard surfaces.

The combination of loftier sole flexibility and cushioning makes the Free RN more usable than the other minimalist shoes that I have feel with.

I would love to have the same sole flexibility and cushioning in a trail or mountain oriented shoe. However, for urban center and not-trail running the Gratis RN will be a good pick for me.

For me, an expanded toe box book and laces with better grip would exist ii areas of improvement for the future.

For most people, it won't be a shoe to choose for demanding runs upwards a mountain or grueling marathons. Withal, for a 5k, 10k, and maybe 20k run, it's a nice design.

We thank the nice people at Nike for sending us a pair of Free RN to test. This did non influence the outcome of the review, written later on running more than than 50 miles in them.

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Source: https://www.runningshoesguru.com/2016/07/nike-free-rn-review/

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