NIKE ACG FEATURE - PART ONE

“I was doing a lot of trail running in those days and I mostly wore either regular running shoes or occasionally Escapes, both of which worked fine but the problem was, if I ran on steep trails, my toes would painfully jam into the end of my shoes when I ran down steep hills. The first thing I tried was a simple integrated toe-bumper which worked nicely when I accidentally booted rocks or roots. I had some nice black and blue toenails to show for that at the time and I didn’t want to jam them again. Oh, the agony!

How does the old saying go? ‘Necessity is a mother?’ No, it’s ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. Anyway, in addition to the toe-bumper, I came up with a lacing system that wrapped round my entire ankle, locking my heel to the back of the shoe so it couldn’t slide forward no matter how steep the hill I ran down was or how hard I booted something. I used a new co-injection process for the top eyelet to make sure it could hold up to abuse. It worked! We put everything but the kitchen sink in the first Air Revaderchi. The outsole came directly from mountain bike tire technology with a tread that squirted the mud out the sides and stuck to the trail by conforming to whatever surface it came in contact with.

We also built a thin plate between the outsole and the midsole to prevent sharp rocks from poking your foot. Hardcore trail running geeks loved the Air Revaderchis but they were a tad too extreme looking for the general public. I guess the name was appropriate... they came and went. ‘See you later!’ A lot of ideas we started back then are fully valid today and are still used on most good trail shoes.”   

STEVE McDONALD
ACG DESIGNER