Review: Adidas Response 20 Trail shoes

In the last few years I have learned that, just like pigs, all shoes are equal but some, in the eyes of some, are more equal than others.  I have friends who use incredibly expensive trail running shoes as everyday shoes (good for them that they can afford it) and I know some people that use normal road running shoes on the trails (I have done this too).  Magazines only review some shoes and they all tend to be the most expensive ones in the market.  After an in between fase when I was running a few trails in my road running shoes I started hunting for a new pair of trail shoes.  After having used New Balance, Saucony, Nike and Adidas in the past I have found in the last few years that the Adidas brand suits my foot better.  I have friends that swear by the other brands but I think you need to get something that will suit your foot.  I ama neutral runner and a not-complete natural runner although I tend to run on my forefoot more than my heel.  I have had problems with my heels in the past as I have bruised both a few years ago during a fall.  With all this in mind I started shopping for shoes.  An aquaintance of mine tried to get me to try the Newton brand.  He swears by them and I tried them on but was not completely convinced.  So I in the end went to what I knew best, which is Adidas.

Trying to find a review of an Adidas shoe is difficult though.  The big running magazines do not do any reviews on them as I think they do not think them good enough or frankly they are not in the snooty price bracket that the magazines cater for.  So, here I am doing a review of the Adidas Response 20.

Lets start of with the superficial.  They are good looking shoes.  I wore them to work for a few days to just get my feet settled in them and I got a lot of compliments.  Weirdly so as I never get compliments when I wear running shoes to work (I work in the fashion industry).  So for the looks I rate them a 5/5.

The cushioning is soft enough to keep my feet comfortable.  At this point I have only done 20km with them on trails but they keep my feet comfortable and more importantly I dont feel every single pebble I step on through my shoes.  They are also quite strong in the middle meaning they dont have too much flex to stretch the bottom of your bridge. They can be a bit hard when you come down a big slope and your footfall becomes a bit harder but not more than any other shoe I have worn.   The main thing is I dont feel the individual studs on the bottom of the shoes which is a big thing for me.  It is also very stable so the chances or your foot moving around inside the shoe on the downhills are also minimal which means less chance for injuries.  So for comfort I would give it a 4/5

The breathability of the shoe is a bit ok but could be better.  There is a lot of plastic fusing with material used in the top which does make it a stronger shoe but does cut down on the breathability of the shoe a bit. 3/5

The grip of the shoe is very very good.  It has wide studs on the heels which gives you lots of extra braking power going downhill.  They do mean though that I wont wear these shoes on the road though as those studs will wear pretty fast and also be very heavy underfoot.  But then this is a trail shoe and not a road shoe. 4/5

Overall I am very happy with the shoes and give it an overall score of  16/20 or 4/5.  Not the perfect shoe but then I dont know if that even exist.

Hope this helps all those out there who dont pull their noses up at Adidas.  Please note that I did not get these shoes for free and in no way do I benefit financially from this review.