Boots, running shoes, sandals, and footwear with electrical-charging capabilities (for real). These are among the innovations you’ll see in the footwear sections at running and outdoor shops next year and beyond.
Step for Power — Generate power by walking. That’s the claim with the SolePower insole. It fits in almost any shoe and has a small generator mechanism that is actuated by every heel strike, creating electricity.
You store your earned energy in a power pack that can be plugged into a phone or gadget to give it juice. Walk a few miles, charge up your dead phone. Pricing TBD.
Bike Rubber on Sole — A Continental rubber outsole, a removable insole/midsole combination insert that can be swapped out for different applications, and looks that could kill… the X King shoes are 2016 prototypes that we spied in the Adidas Outdoor booth at the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show last month.
The rumored inserts range from a heavily padded “boost” foam to a minimalist, zero-drop option. It was difficult to resist a smash-and-grab of these innovative outdoor kicks at the trade show booth.
Dyneema Trail Shoe — Rarely does a material choice excite us about a pair of shoes. But the super-strong Dyneema used on the Mammut MTR 201 Tech Low turned our heads — this slippery, light, and “stronger than steel” material could be a perfect fit for anyone who abuses footwear and blows out shoe uppers like we do.
Mammut made the model for alpine running where scree, talus, rock slabs, and other abrasive obstacles are common on a trail or off-trail route.
