Salomon XT Wing

Say hello to your new best friend. The XT wing is the shoe that Salomon fans have been waiting for ever since that ugly as sin and cool as can be red, blue, and yellow XA Pro came out 7 years ago.

What's to love? You might ask. Well... Lets take everything the XA Pro does well and do it better. Lateral support for the uneven terrain has always been a hallmark feature of the Pro, the Wing takes it to another level with the 3D molded chassis beneath the heel. This creates space for more cushion while keeping the heel strike area nice and wide. Orienteering across a re-entrant with crooked feet for 1.72 miles uphill? This is the shoe.

Cushion. One thing the XA Pro always lacked (becuase its a "trail" shoe) is substantial cushion. The theory goes; the trail has much more absorption than pavement or track and thus, the extra cushion we're used to in our roadies not only raises our footbed, making it more unstable, but ads extra weight (which ranks about as high as watching re-runs of American Idol on Saturday night when you should be down in Arkansas). The Pro got rid of this cushion in favor of agility, stability and weight. The Wing has a new theory...

New Theory... While the super hardcore trail dudes are always on the trail, most of us have to negotiate some fire roads, pavement, or YMCA tracks to get our daily dose of running in. Even in adventure races we see segments of the race connected by pavement. The Wing makes all of this OK. Using lighter polys for the foam, and the nice 3D chassis skeleton, the Wing has more cushion (for the harder surfaces and longer races) while keeping the light weight and stability of the Pro. What's to hate? Nothing. This shoe truly is the best of both worlds. A concept which we're still trying to wrap our heads around.

Draining. All of our reports from the field show that this shoe is draining just as good as the XA Pro (which is largely regarded as one of the fastest drying trail shoes out there).

Looks. It looks cool and comes in many nice colors. New colors this fall too. Maybe you could get a color to match your Osprey Talon pack (the ultimate adventure racing team setup) Our style team gave this shoe a 9.73 on our 10 scale so you can be guaranteed to get compliments next time you strut your Wings into the post workout oasis.

For more technical mumbo jumbo and 3D views of this shoe, go here.