Norda 005

It's been a bit of a tricky journey because I've built a fairly big aerobic engine over the last few years, however my technical ability has certainly diminished and doesn't match what I can produce in terms of output given the fact that I haven't run a lot of technical trail in the last three years. This at times leaves me feeling a little disconnected when wearing “high stack” trail shoes and the search for a solid race day shoe is a constant puzzle for me.

Rewinding things back to where my trail running journey started the industry was completely different. There was no high stack = high energy return philosophy with race day shoes, instead a focus was generally on low cushion, less weight and better ground feel.

Now I may be a bit of a dinosaur, but I've grown enough to know that these old lightweight bricks weren't great and that in order to not fall to pieces over long days out on the trails we need a certain level of cushion and support. Is the 005 a potential happy marriage between the old and the new? Read on

Finally, on the fit itself, the shoe is very comfortable. I'd put the toe box in the wider category; so had no issues at all with the roominess. One very important thing that I would pass on is that I did go up half a size in the shoe but that was more based on length as I found my big toe was just too close to the end and I was initially a bit worried that on fast flowing downhill I might be running into the end of the shoe; my toenails are currently all in tact so i would say that this was a good decision!

All in all it is a very comfortable shoe and I have to say I love how light it is with so many trail shoes coming in these days between 250 and 350 grams.

As you can probably tell my experience with the 005s has been very positive. It is super refreshing to roll along in a shoe with less than 30mm of stack and rediscover my confidence when running over true technical terrain. If you've read this far along you will see that I haven't got any negatives to pass on for the way that the shoot performs or is built and really the only thing that has been a little bit painful to come to terms with is the price tag!

Starting from the top. The shoe features a featherlight yet incredibly strong open weave upper made from Dyneema mesh which is paired with matching Dyneema laces. Funky! I've really enjoyed the rigidity of this part of the shoe and this was one of the first things that stood out to me in the listed components as I'm also a keen mountaineer where we often use dyneema for slings and ropework systems due to the fact that it is a substrate that doesnt take on water or moisture. (we don't want added weight in the mountains).

This thing feels pretty damn bombproof. I have notoriously weak ankles, so if anyone can roll an ankle or rip an upper off a midsole it's me! However, no chance! I’ve found the upper really secure and love that I can do the extra lace lock when lacing them up as well.
For me the upper gets a big tick. Honestly no room for messing with this. It's 10/10.




Moving on down to the squishy bits.

The midsole consists of a highly responsive, TPEE super foam that offers a ton of cushioning given the fact that this shoe packs close to 10mm less stack height than other shoes that are in its category. The other interesting midsole feature is that there is no rigid carbon or rock plate. Personally I really loved this. I have openly not been a huge fan of plated trail shoes up to this point as I find I can't fully trust the shoe to move with me over techy terrain & this was a big reason for wanting to give these bad boys a go. Don't get me wrong. If we are racing on the Lake Dunstan trail or the Motatapu trail marathon course I'm choosing a plated shoe, but if we are targeting techy terrain i dont want a plate messing with my running mechanics!

The actual performance feel on the midsole is really solid. I'm not feeling beat up after sessions where there are sustained downhill phases and I also feel like the foam is really snappy for those pinchy climbs and flowy sections where you can find some honest tempo effort.

So the score on the midsole = 9/10. No joke!




Finally underneath, there is a super sticky one piece Vibram MegaGrip Elite equipped with 4mm multi-directional lugs.This part of the shoe is again really well built. This is going well isn't it;

I've found my confidence on the Crater Rims volcanic rock continues to develop as I trust this shoes' outsole more and more on every run. I’m actually gravitating towards those bits of rock now knowing that I will have good purchase and secure footing. He's back baby!

You name it. Gravel, grassy trail, sheep shit & techy forest sections are all well and truly in this shoes wheelhouse! How many more exclamation marks can one man add into a review?




Alright i’ll take a breath here. If im being the devils advocate all i could say is that 4mm might not be a deep enough lug for a day where you are racing in wet conditions and so in this case you may need to look at other options. I wouldn't want to be running fast through muddy conditions with only 4mm of lug to play with. Finally i would just say that like all trail shoes, they really aren't meant for the roads, so on days where I might jog that 2 or 3 km to the hills I'm very conscious of wearing out the soft megagrip lugs, so have found myself driving over at times given the price tag on these shoes. If i were to guess which part of this shoe fails first it would for me be wearing out the lugs, but i would also say that is best case scenario for most shoes.

So again if i have to score the Outsole its gotta be another 9/10

Whenever I pick up a new pair of trail shoes I put them through a pretty rigorous testing protocol. We live only a couple of km from the base of Christchurch's Port Hills, which means that there is no shortage of excellent terrain to play around on from fast flowing gravel to really technical single track. I've now run over 150k in these things and am at the point where I feel that I can pass on some good information that may hopefully help others in their quest for a great trail shoe…

So what is it? This shoe is tagged as an ultra-lightweight, high-performance trail racing shoe.
The claimed weight is between 214g and 253g with a 7mm heel-to-toe drop and for me this checks out weighing in at 220g in a mens US9.5. I'm listening, I'm listening…