I was lucky enough to be invited to the New Balance UK Spring-Summer 2015 press launch event at Hoxton Arches in the trendy part of the east end of London. As the title suggests, the event was held to showcase their new products for the upcoming spring and summer, it contained all of their new 'lifestyle' shoes and of course, their running shoes.
|
hoxton arches |
I finished work and because I didn't fancy taking the tube, I ran the 6km from Westminster. Upon arrival I was greeted and then introduced to one of New Balance's professional athletes - Mark Draper and he talked me through the new updated ranges.
The standard lines
My main interest was with the update of the 1080 range and I must say that the shocking green/yellow of the V5 is one that I'd like to get my hands on when they are released.
If you have read my
1080v3 and
1080v4 blog posts you'll know that I love the v3 but I wasn't entirely happy with the changes that were made to fit around the heel of the v4. While at the event I had a chance to talk about this and discovered that the v5 is built on the same last as the v4 which means that, sadly, this particular issue will probably still exist.
The other road shoes that were of interest to me were the M1500, which is a racier shoe than I usually wear but one that I am keen to try at some point.
|
1080v5 mens |
|
1080v5 womens |
|
860v5 (stability shoe) |
|
880v4 |
|
m1500 (sorry about the blurriness) |
Fresh Foam
The updated versions of the 'Fresh Foam' range were also on show. This range is made up of the 'soft and smooth' 'Boracay' and its lower profiled and racier 'Zante' which comes with the tagline 'smooth just got fast'. They also had the updated Fresh Foam 980 trail shoes.
|
large fresh foam molecules |
|
fresh foam |
|
fresh foam boracay |
|
fresh foam zante |
|
fresh foam 980 trail |
|
fresh foam 980 trail |
Others
While on the subject of trail shoes, I also had a peak at the new version of the 'Leadville' 1210. I had previously tried the original on and found that they are A LOT of shoe which put me in an unusually elevated position. With the word Leadville in the name, you can tell that this is a shoe that is designed for very long runs.
|
1210 'leadville' (grey and green) |
The last few shoes looked like they were the children's range - although this is just my assumption going by the small size of the shoes. There were options for road and trail.
|
636 |
|
610v4 |
So that's about it. I think I photographed pretty much all of the running shoes that were there. New Balance UK no longer stock the minimus range (which I understand is still produced and going strong elsewhere) so there were none of these on show.
With that done, I headed back out onto the road to continue my evening's running with a short 3km trot down to Cannon Street to catch the train home.
[7t]