Sam and matt's shoe weekly...

Hello, and welcome to the inaugural Shoe Weekly!

In the many weeks to come we will be introducing you to our shoes, new arrivals when we get them and old favorites when we don't. We're going to have just enough technical jargon to make the shoe geeks (like ourselves) happy, but the real focus will be on how the shoe fits and functions. Although this is a team effort, Matt will be doing the most of the typing, and this is for two reasons. First, Sam doesn't have opposable thumbs, making the space bar a tad difficult. Second, she pulled rank. Ah well, outranked by a dog... What are you gonna do?

Okay, the shoes!

After much anticipation (at least on my part), we are now the proud retailers of the new Asics Gel Cumulus 11.

The driving force behind Asics cushioning is Gel. It’s called out on many models as a colorful piece of rubbery material embedded in the midsole. This gel works well at absorbing and dissipating the shock from impact, the upside of which is that it feels 'solidly soft' (oxymoron, mine). The white foam in Asics shoes is Solyte, a fancy word for a slightly altered version of the old industry standby, EVA (that’s ethyl-vinyl acetate, but don’t worry, it won’t be on the test). If one looks at the bottom of a pair of Asics, you can see a plastic 'bridge' in the midfoot area. This is the Asics ‘Trusstic,’ which acts to provide midfoot stability while easing the heel-to-toe transition. Under the first metatarsal head (base of the big toe) there is a unit of 'Twist Gel', put there as part of the grandiosely named 'Impact Guidance System' (IGS) that serves to increase the effectiveness of the natural windlass effect in your foot.

If you’re a deep tech geek, click here find more about the windlass effect in an article from 'Running Times' written by one of our own, old Shoe Guy. (Yeah, we actually drag him out, dust him off, and put him to work occasionally…)

Back to the new Cumulus 11. The Cumulus has long been the bread and butter neutral shoe from the Asics line. As such, the folks at Asics are absolutely terrified of screwing it up and thus haven't changed much. With this latest incarnation, they started by taking what made the Cumulus 10 work so well and running with it (no horrible pun intended).
The Cumulus 10 was the first of the series to feature major decoupled cushioning in the heel, a common device that delivers greater, more individualized shock attenuation. In the Cumulus 11, the heel decoupling is even more dramatic.

The midsole of Cumulus 11 is a different type of Solyte. It’s ever-so-slightly softer, and lighter, shaving a quarter of an ounce off of the weight of the old shoe. So not only is this new version of the Cumulus softer and cushion better, it is also lighter. Que raro! This actually sums up the underfoot changes (I told you they didn't change it much).
The most welcome change in the upper of the new Cumulus is the updated heel geometry. The most common complaint about the old Cumulus was that the heel came up too high and irritated the Achilles tendon. In order to alleviate this, the heel tab is more vertically oriented. Another noticeable change (I hesitate to call it drastic) is what the Asics people call 'Kimono' tongue construction. The tongue opens fully only on the medial side. On the lateral side, the tongue is attached approximately halfway down to keep the tongue from slipping to one side. Also, on the lateral side if you look directly beneath where the tongue is attached you can see that there is a piece of memory foam that has been slipped under the lining to make it fit a little bit more supportively. If you try it on, you can feel the difference there on the lateral side. While this new design reduces the chance of irritation on the top of the foot, theoretically (in all honesty I'm slightly skeptical, although the logic makes sense) this version of the Cumulus may be a little bit more supinator-friendly. The extra support also helps keep the foot more solidly balanced on the platform of the shoe. Finally, the stitching from the memory foam collar (labeled as PHF for 'Personal Heel Fit') has been removed (a la the Asics GT-2140).

The last thing any runner wants to hear is that a shoe company has changed THEIR shoe. "It's worked so well so why do they change it?" Trust me, we're not always thrilled with the changes either. We sometimes get a lot of "if this doesn't work I'm going to take it out on this poor college student who fitted me in it..." Luckily, I personally feel like the Cumulus 11 addressed some minor, but significant problems posed by the Cumulus 10, and it should make fans of the Cumulus 10 quite happy. Happy enough, we hope, that there won't be a lot of pent up shoe frustration released on abovementioned college student...

I hope that this was informative and maybe helpful. Sam and I look forward to seeing you soon in Fleet Feet Davis. Any questions, comments, concerns (or chocolate chip cookies if you are so inclined) can be directed to me at the store, to my email (click here), or to a higher power (like Sam, who loves milk bones).

Happy running!

Matt & Sam Elliot