The On Cloudultra Professional. All pictures: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
On’s path footwear have been divisive to this point, however the On Cloudultra Professional ($260) is lastly pro-approved.
The model has returned to the path operating sphere with what some are calling a path tremendous shoe, though I’m not solely offered on that label. The Cloudultra Professional is a really cushioned, excessive efficiency path racing shoe, with a really costly price ticket. Rumors recommend that the Cloudultra Professional was sufficient to deliver 2025 Hardrock 100 and 2024 Western States 100 and UTMB winner Katie Schide over to the model from former longtime footwear sponsor, The North Face. Schide opened her 2025 season within the Cloudultra Professional with a right away win at Madeira Island Extremely-Path 115k.
I’ll always remember an expertise again in 2018 once I was lining up earlier than the Monte Rosa Skyrace in Italy when well-known path operating photographer Ian Corless took a take a look at my footwear, and coarsely exclaimed, “mate, you’re going to race Monte Rosa in these?!”
“These” have been a pair of On Cloudventuretheir first path shoe and the one with the very wavy “Cloudtec” midsole. Corless’s doubts apart, I positioned fourth total within the deep 22k discipline, although this good outcome didn’t make me an On loyalist.
The following years would produce extra misses than hits in On’s path choices. The model seemed to be targeted on some really cutting-edge street efficiency footwear, like their robot-made street tremendous shoe, the On Cloudboom Strike Lightspraywhich I’ve examined and have been incredible. Path footwear appeared to take a again seat to the innovation taking place with street footwear, to not point out On’s deal with forming partnerships with style and music influencers. But it surely appears the quiet interval was intentional and busy behind the scenes.
The Cloudultra Professional pushes up very intently to being, nicely, mega-stacked just like the Salomon S/Lab Extremely Gendure or The North Face Summit Vectiv Professional 3. It’s comparable in ground-feel to the previous fairly than the later, regardless of the Salomon shoe having no plate in any respect. The Cloudultra Professional has a claimed stack top of 39 millimeters within the heel and 33 within the toe for 6-millimeter drop. It has a reasonably rockered form and a midsole composed of two totally different densities of froth sandwiching a fiberglass plate.
All of those qualities would push it into tremendous shoe territory, however the propulsive really feel is noticeably lesser than in footwear just like the adidas Terrex Agravic Pace Extremely or the Nike Ultrafly. A U.S. males’s 9 has an precise weight of 9.3 ounces (262 grams). The sub-10-ounce weight belies its total footprint, which feels large.
There’s a little bit of brain-body confusion taking place from while you put the shoe on to while you’re operating in it. It appears to be like clunky however runs surprisingly nimble — there’s a bizarre disconnect that rapidly disappears. Consolation is without doubt one of the shoe’s key qualities — becoming because it’s designed for very long-distance operating — suppose UTMB fairly than Golden Trails — and even with my extensive toes I skilled no areas of trouble.
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On Cloudultra Professional Higher
A lateral view of the On Cloudultra Professional.
From a model with as wild an higher innovation because the aforementioned Lightspray, it’s not stunning that On brings a really distinctive and new method to the closely prototyped On Cloudultra Professional.
The shoe’s three fundamental higher design parts don’t veer removed from what most path footwear goal to perform — breathability, quick-drying, and assist/growth for swollen toes — however the precise design is not like something I’ve seen. On makes use of a brand new technical mesh higher know-how utilizing Leno weave. Like Matryx, which appears to be displaying up on nearly each new (and costly) path shoe, Leno’s weave is a technical mesh materials that’s tremendous robust and abrasion resistant.
Wanting on the shoe’s facet profile, the Leno composition has areas of tighter weave from the toe towards the midfoot, then opens up with giant gaps within the weave on the true midfoot. Held as much as the sunshine, you’ll be able to see immediately by the weave, in addition to within the few areas with an TPU overlay. I’ve been testing the footwear over a very blistering Might, June, and July in Colorado and have appreciated the effectiveness of this materials to dump warmth and water, and snow within the mountains.
The gusseted tongue is sort of all the time completely seated. It suits my extensive toes nicely, although narrower toes would possibly discover it roomy. I discovered it completely amenable to my foot kind and will see it being maybe slightly ill-fitting for runners with out the identical extensive footprint as me. On’s different street tremendous shoe, the On Cloudboom Strike (non-LightSpray model), got here with a set of comically lengthy laces; the On Cloudultra Professional’s are of regular size and even single-knotted by no means got here unfastened. They’re made within the serrated type that plenty of manufacturers are utilizing now.
A pull tab on the tongue for storing the laces extra generally served as a means for me to clean out the tongue, wiggling my foot round, and letting the whole lot fall into place.
Many runners have points with how manufacturers assemble heel cups, be it the density or the peak and the way it impacts consolation in opposition to the Achilles. That is nearly by no means an issue for me, and I discovered no points within the Cloudultra Professional both.
On Cloudultra Professional Midsole
A medial view of the On Cloudultra Professional.
As attention-grabbing because the higher is on the On Cloudultra Professionalit’s actually the midsole composition that may make or break this shoe, relying in your wants. And that is the place you would possibly, like me, query whether or not this can be a true tremendous shoe.
The three-part midsole consists of Helion “superfoam” — a tender high layer and agency backside layer with a Speedboard (TPU plate) between the 2. The yellow plate could be seen while you maintain the shoe up and like another manufacturers, its fork form is printed on the outsole. It’s a fairly discrete plate, operating solely the size from the ball of the foot to only earlier than the heel, and is barely about an inch and a half at its widest level.
I used to be extraordinarily doubtful how this shoe would carry out on technical descents with the mix of its very excessive stack top and plate, however it’s truly much more profitable than a number of the rivals, contorting and dampening over off-angle terrain.
The plate’s comparatively small dimension and the dampness of the froth produces a strong feeling on touchdown and is a bit nimbler than the stiffer, totally carbon-plated footwear. However there additionally lies the downside. Propulsion, effectivity, and turnover at velocity simply doesn’t really feel as robust because the rivals’ footwear. In fact, these footwear aren’t very snug over plenty of hours. Sneakers just like the Agravic Pace Extremely — though constructed with Western States in thoughts — are so stiff to the purpose of tiring my toes out, and I discover it very troublesome to descend technical terrain in them. I discovered nothing comparable in multi-hour runs within the Cloudultra Professional. What you would possibly sacrifice by way of pure velocity, you acquire in long-term consolation from this extra forgiving midsole.
The froth and plate mixture can solely be described as plush. The gorgeous underfoot really feel produces a sensational operating expertise; a far cry from the slapping-the-ground impact of the aforementioned Cloudventure. On has taken plenty of warmth about the best way it has steadily morphed its Cloudtec design, sharpening and diminishing the design of this On hallmark, main some to query whether or not it was truly a useful function for cushioning or simply an aesthetic selection to face out. Nicely, On has mentioned the Cloudtec on the Cloudultra Professional is a stabilizing drive, as designed into the underside layer of froth.
On informed us that the midsole recipe within the Cloudultra Professional was examined within the lab over a protracted prototyping interval with its athletes, and the outcomes produced best-in-class effectivity on uphill and downhill runs. I feel the shoe actually does thread that needle between pretty quick going uphill, and is simpler to belief on descents than the stiff, clenched trip of the Agravic Pace Extremely.
On Cloudultra Professional Outsole
The outsole of the On Cloudultra Professional.
The On Cloudultra Professional has On’s proprietary Mission Grip rubber with 3.5-millimeter lugs. Out of the field, the lugs aren’t tremendous aggressive — that is positively not a mud shoe. However they look quick: extensive spacing, multidirectional shapes; a white, lugless cutout down the middle, the place the Speedboard sits above. Although I piloted that unique Cloudventure over some very technical terrain within the Monte Rosa Skyrace, On hasn’t been a very standout downhilling shoe model from my expertise. May this design truly ship on difficult trails?
On dry trails, the Missiongrip is extremely useful. Hardpack dust and hearth roads are the shoe’s candy spot, although on technical trails, the shoe is nimble and grippy sufficient when leaping throughout boulders or different rock options. I felt locked in and assured, particularly on descents the place I’d usually again off a bit in equally priced path tremendous footwear. On moist trails issues are predictably slightly extra sketchy — ironic for the reason that shoe is so profitable at draining water must you encounter it. For those who’re on slick rocks, moist roots, or thick clay, you’ll wish to be slightly extra cautious. The rubber simply doesn’t have the identical sticky, wet-surface grip you’d get from one thing like a Vibram outsole. Additionally, the lugs don’t shed mud all that nicely. As soon as they clog up, it’s recreation over till issues dry out.
On designed the outsole utilizing Finite Component Evaluation (FEA), a computer-based methodology used to foretell how a bodily object or system will react to forces, warmth, vibrations, and different bodily results. On used this instrument to optimize the form, orientation, and density of the lugs. In accordance with On, they sussed out the chosen Missiongrip compound and lug type from over 200 totally different choices. The prototyping phases used a small number of totally different compounds that have been then examined within the discipline. The model says this course of has resulted of their most superior Missiongrip to this point.
On Cloudultra Professional General Impressions
A high view of the On Cloudultra Professional.
The On Cloudulter for seems like On’s most mature and well-rounded path shoe to this point — an acknowledgment, maybe, that they’ve lastly determined to get severe concerning the extremely and mountain operating world after years of experimental, and infrequently irritating, path designs. It’s not excellent, and whether or not you think about it a path tremendous shoe in all probability relies on the way you outline the time period — but it surely’s clearly constructed for actual racing and long-haul mountain efforts.
What impressed me most is how the totally different elements — higher, midsole, outsole — really feel not simply thought by, however examined in the precise means. The plush, dual-density Helion foam and modest plate ship consolation over time with out the cruel stiffness of different plated footwear. The Leno weave higher is breathable and genuinely revolutionary, not simply in look however in on-foot efficiency. And whereas the Missiongrip outsole nonetheless doesn’t fairly persist with moist terrain like Vibram, it’s one of the best iteration of On’s path rubber but — and ok for many circumstances exterior of deep mud.
Finally, the Cloudultra Professional is a shoe that’s higher than the sum of its components. It’s not the lightest, quickest, or most aggressive path shoe on the market — however for lengthy days within the mountains, particularly in dry or combined terrain, it’s arduous to beat the steadiness of consolation, safety, and precision. That is the primary time I’ve completed testing an On path shoe and instantly needed to take it out once more the subsequent day. That claims lots.
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