Asics Going Minimalist With New Shoes?

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Asics Going Minimalist With New Shoes?

The Running Warehouse blog is a great spot to get the latest news on upcoming lines of shoes from the various big-name manufacturers. In the most recent post, Joe Rubio recounts his experience at the Asics Gold Account Meeting held recently outside of Austin, Texas. Among other things, Rubio reports that it was clear that "Asics, like many other brands, is taking the trend toward minimal-type footwear seriously and planning future footwear to respond to the trend."

So what does Asics have up its sleeve? Details (and pictures) are scanty at this point, but here are a few shoes to keep an eye out for (all quotes are from the Running Warehouse Blog post by Joe Rubio):

Asics Gel-DS Sky Speed - this shoe is "a neutral DS trainer based on the DS Trainer 15 tooling."

Asics Gel-Noosa Tri 6 - this is "a model brought over from Australia designed for the Tri market. It’s based on the tooling from the DS Trainer 14 and the colors are pretty out there. Think of your 3 year old putting different colored pieces of Play-doh on your shoe and leaving it out in the sun to dry. Definitely an eye catcher." Below is a picture of the Gel Noosa Tri 5 (the previous model) - he's not kidding:

Asics Gel Noosa 5

Apparently the shoe to watch for is the newly remodeled Asics Gel-Speedstar 5. It supposedly has a unique upper that will come in several color combos and is reported to be "super light." Wonder if this is Asics answer to the Saucony Kinvara?

It's hard to know at this point what any of these shoes will be like, but it's good to see another one of the big players in the shoe industry taking minimalist running seriously. My hope is that even if the first round of shoes from these companies fail to satisfy, competition will breed innovation, and we'll see more and more interesting designs appear on the market somewhere down the road.

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Runblogger is edited and authored by Peter Larson. Pete is an anatomy professor, writer, and a fanatical runner with a bit of a shoe obsession. He is co-author of the book Tread Lightly. Follow Pete on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and via email.