 Hello and welcome to EBTV. I'm Ross and I'm here today to talk to you about North Face's new shoe, the Summit Vectiv Pro. I've been a fell runner for nearly 20 years and during that time I got completely addicted to a little race in Chamonix called the UTMB. I first finished that in 2007 and since then I've completed it three more times. So I first saw this shoe, although I didn't know it at the time, watching the live footage of the 2022 UTMB when Paul Capel started leading soon after leaving Chamonix and he was sprinting down the valley and I noticed these big soft shoes that were on his feet and I remember thinking at the time it looked like a marathon shoe and is that going to help him on this route or could it even hinder him? So what is it? This is a ultra distance race shoe with a full length carbon fibre plate and as you can see lots of cushioning. So this shoe comes about after feedback from the athletes and the testers on the original Vectiv and the North Face tweaked the design and we now have version 2.0 and that is the foam that they use and also a full length carbon plate but it's actually forked in the forefoot and the heel and that's designed to help with lateral movement when you're running on even terrain. The cushioning is vast, you can see that's 32mm in the heel, it's a 6mm drop which is becoming the standard now in these ultra distance shoes and then the other thing of note is this new mesh that they've used that is almost see through it, very breathable but what I really like about it is it's really tough, I guess the only disadvantage is that it's not going to stop water coming through but that's what you'd expect. And finally it's also for the first time I'm pretty certain that the North Face have included a trail running shoe in their Summit series So this shoe's already proven itself on the feet of elite athletes with multiple podiums at last year's UTMB most notably First Place Woman for Katie Scheid in UTMB. This is the first time I've actually ran in a full carbon plated cushioned shoe like this normally all my other shoes are particularly stiff or have some medial postings so that's always a compromise on the cushioning and never ran in one with such an extreme rocker as well and that is definitely the thing that I noticed the most, the level of cushioning and how this rocker actually propels you forward and I'd read all about it and understood that that's what it was designed to do but I was still surprised when that's the feeling that I actually got and certainly for somebody who lands so predominantly on their heel to now feel like I'm more on my toe although I probably aren't in practice but feel that I am and also feel that I'm getting pushed forward and some propulsion was something I never expected. So the cushioning is good and the rocker's really noticeable and has been a nice surprise certainly somebody who's not ever thought it would be able to wear a shoe like this in terms of stability it's also surprising as well when I first saw this shoe on Paul Cappell's feet I just thought there'd be no chance I'd be able to ever wear it but as you can see it is really quite stiff and when I put my orthotic in that is help and because the carbon fibre plate is directly under the foot I do feel pretty stable in it. When you get onto more technical ground it doesn't always feel completely planted now that might be to do with my orthotic in it and the fact that I need an orthotic to run pain free compared to wearing a very low stack fell shoe I have in my mind that I need to be switched on and be careful on particular technical terrain and that's not a massive issue it's just something that would have to remember to do there is a couple of times where my foot's maybe wanted to roll but I've managed to snap it back because I'm aware of it So this shoe is available now on our website we hope this review has been useful but we want to hear your questions are you looking at this shoe and are you considering it for a particular event they are expensive 225 on our website so it's not a decision to take lightly if we can help you in any way let us know but also if you do take the plunge we'd love to hear your feedback and look forward to seeing you out on the trails