Vibram FiveFingers Speed Review: Retro Modern

Today, I published a review of Vibram FiveFingers Speed footcoverings, which is a wonderful combination of road feel, foot protection, retrospective styling, and laces. That's right: laces! From behind and from the sides, the Speed looks like a pair of Airwalk or Vans skater shoes or even old-school Adidas football boots (which is what the British call soccer cleats), but with the separated toe enclosures indicative of any FiveFingers model. Here is a link to that review:

The Best FiveFingers I've Worn

To summarize, the Speed is my favorite Vibram FiveFingers model and is the best one available for overall running performance balanced with an understated, yet funky look. Most of what Vibram has to offer is either gaudily colored, constructed with space-agey materials and design concepts, or both. The Speed is a throwback with minimal style, but with breathable black mesh fabric and strategically placed pads on a 7mm outsole. Thus, the Speed has truly gone "back to the future."

Minimalist Running: Shameless Self-Advertising

I must admit that I meant RetroBeliever to be a blog that discusses old videogames and other nostalgic items from a Christian perspective. However, I'd like to briefly discuss running, specifically minimalist running. Minimalist running is basically running with minimal cushioning and road protection. The most extreme form of minimalist running is barefoot running, which is done WITHOUT any kind of footcovering. Outside of that, you have running with sandals, Vibram FiveFingers, and shoes with close to a zero-millimeter drop from heel to toe and little cushioning.

In this blog entry, I am simply compiling links to articles and reviews I have written about minimalist running. Here they are:

My review of the Vibram FiveFingers Sprint:
Being Barefoot Without Being Barefoot

My review of the Vibram FiveFingers Bikila:
Being Less Barefoot When Near-Barefoot Running

My review of the Vibram FiveFingers Speed:
The Best FiveFingers I've Worn

My review of the Garmin FR60 Running Watch:
A Fine Watch for the Semi-Serious Runner

Articles about Minimalist Running:

(Near) Barefoot Running, part 1: Tips, Tricks, and Mythbusting

(Near) Barefoot Running, part 2: More Tips, Tricks, and Mythbusting

Please check out these articles and feel free to comment regarding your thoughts about barefoot and minimalist running. Also, for your benefit, here is a video published by Terra Plana about how to run with the most optimal barefoot/minimalist gait:

Vibram FiveFingers Bikila Review: Not So Retro

As probably 10 or so people in the world know, I write reviews and articles for Epinions and blog posts for RetroBeliever. I sometimes link my blog posts to those articles because they either expand on a topic I discuss on this blog or review a product related to anything anachronistic and retro. Anyway, I wrote recently about a pair of Vibram FiveFingers Bikilas I purchased two weeks ago, which are pictured to the left of this post. Because Epinions reviews do not often appear in Google searches, I am linking to it for your (and my) benefit:

Being Less Barefoot When Near-Barefoot Running

You might be thinking, "What's so retro about these shoes? They look rather modern!" Well, what's more retro than running without traditional shoes? To summarize the review, the Bikila model is an excellent entry in the Vibram FiveFingers line that is geared toward the middle- to long-distance runner. It doesn't preserve the road feel of previous Vibram offerings, but the Bikila model does provide some of the major benefits of near-barefoot running, like addressing heel striking. More importantly, these "shoes" take us back to a running form that has largely been forgotten - barefoot running.