The North Face® Single-Track - reviewed...
Autumn has been a busy time in terms of trying out new alternative trail running shoes for this reviewer and with my inflamed metatarsals I hoped to find a shoe that struck a good balance between grip, lightness, and protection from the dangers of the trail.
Lo and behold, The North Face® Single-Track arrived in my mailbox in December and has been getting a solid workout ever since. Let’s look at the aesthetics and then move on to the tests I subjected the shoe to and how the shoe emerged from the rigours imposed on it.
First Impressions
The Single-Track has slight similarities The North Face® Sentinel for those accustomed to North Face trail runners. For me this was my first exposure to a North Face trail runner and at first it struck me that the shoe looked every part the trail runner: very durable mesh, a masculine and rugged design, and extra protection in all the right places for a trail runner (at the tip and the heel). My model comes in zinc-grey and aviator blue but the model is also available in red and black.
Both the lacing system and the laces themselves appear strong and they dry quickly. To add to this a practical pocket (called a “scree-collar”) sits beneath the laces to store away the tied knot safely and not suffer the usual ignominy of stopping during a race because your lace has come undone (as even double-knots can do in very wet weather). The pocket is large enough to store a number of other smaller items such as a gel or a chip, although this doesn’t seem to be the intended use. A heel-strap, now an almost ubiquitous feature in trail runners, allows you to quickly pull the shoe on and off especially when it’s (who hasn’t struggled to get a shoe back on after losing it in the mud!).
The North Face Single-Track - women's
The most pleasing aspect of the design comes from the low-cut heel cushion: There’s enough to provide more protection than you would get from your average racing flat but not so much that the shoe turns into an unstable platform. In opting for this design, North Face has dodged one of the most dangerous bullets seen in trail running shoes.
The sole
Be it hill, mountain, fell, or trail runners, all off-road runners have a primary interest in good grip to come with the stability of their shoe. The Side-Street offers one of the most fascinating outsoles I have seen (described as Tenacious™ Grip high-abrasion off-road sticky rubber): along the edges it features a pattern similar to a car tire in sticky rubber. The centre circle of both the forefoot and the heel part, however, feature softer and much stickier hexagon studs (9 at the front, 3 at the back) with an additional 8 hexagons of very hard grey rubber at the front and back of the forefoot.
On the inside North Face has implemented its Ortholite Northotic multi-density footbed from which the shoe derives a lot of its stability, support and cushioning. This variety seems intended to allow the shoe to effectively grip a wide variety of surfaces and to provide a safe platform for running over rough terrain. So how did it perform in real life?
How does it run?
Well, that’s the big question isn’t it? Let me state my bias first: I like lightweight runners and have bought into the barefoot ethos of preferring little correction on your “natural” gait. The Single-Track for starters feels lighter than most shoes.
On my kitchen scale the shoe weighed in at 356g which his 2 grams lighter than the PUMA Trailfox (a shoe I have often used for racing). Lighter racing shoes like the Salomon Speed-Cross weigh in at 285g so the Single-Track isn’t quite as light but compares very favourably with traditional trail runners such as the ASICS Moriko with its weight of 434g (heavy enough that I gave up using the Moriko even as a training shoe).
So the first time I slipped my foot into the shoe it felt comfortable, light and stable. The trail tests would confirm my initial impressions.
The Tests – Through Snow, Mud, and Water!
As my testing was about to commence the Irish weather conspired to setup perfect testing conditions: First plentiful supplies of rain causing extremely wet conditions on most of my favourite trails followed by great volumes of snow, a terrain you can rarely test on these isles.
I took the shoes onto my flat trail loop around a local reservoir (featuring grass, tarmac, rocks, dirt and gravel track), out on my “home ground hill run” on Trooperstown Hill (some days in the ice and snow), to a forest trail in the valley below, and on the frozen tarmac in Dublin city; most runs clocked in between 40-120 minutes. So let me start by concluding: This shoe is very versatile and it offers ample protection on all terrains, making it a good travel shoe if you don’t want to bring multiple pairs in your luggage (indeed it was my choice for my current trip to Fargo, North Dakota).
My run on the frozen tarmac in Dublin and Fargo confirmed this: Because of the design of the Single-Track it can serve as a backup road-shoe in wet or slippy conditions and after a month of running the sole still looks like new so you shouldn’t fear unduly wearing it down by running on hard terrain as you would with some softer trail running shoes.
How it Rated
The shoe competes with my pair of Adidas Kanadia 2 for stability and distances the Salomon XA Pro 3D and PUMA Trailfox 2 that I own. You have a great “feel for the ground” in the Single-Track considering the amount of protection the sole provides from impact with hard rocks. This apparently has been achieved through use of The North Face “Snake Plate” technology which makes the shoe less rigid and allows ”the foot to flex, bend, and contort with the terrain”. The product description mirrors real life in this case.
Grip-wise the shoe performed very well both on the mixed trails and in the snow. It found its limits on ice but my grippier shoes (like the Kanadia 2, Trailfox 2, and Speed Cross 2) suffered equally: Only metal studs will do for certain conditions.
For those pronators and supinators who fear the shoes neutral design will disqualify them from using the shoe, just remember that no good trail shoe should offer correction as this makes you more likely to suffer sprains. The Single-Track feels like a stable platform when you land on a cambered piece of path or put your foot on rocks and other uneven footing: Then your ankle strength just has to do the rest!
My tender forefoot also felt significantly less discomfort from running on hard surfaces than in some of the other shoes I have recently employed especially on downhill gravel trails. North Face employs a technology called X-DOME which functions as “a spring that both cushions and propels the foot into subsequent stride stages”. This can explain why the shoe strikes such a fine balance between lightness and protection.
Cleaning the shoe after the runs in heavy mud was also a breeze: put it under a strong hose and the material wicks away dirt quickly. On the run, the breathable upper clears out excess water stopping the shoe from becoming too heavy. You’ll get the icy cold water straight into the shoe but find solace in the fact it’ll seep right back out again and the shoe will not turn swelteringly hot in summer as a trade-off for dry feet!
The Verdict
From my one month experience with the Single-Track my verdict is clear: It’s a very good training shoe for trails and long hill runs and would be a perfect long-distance off-road running shoe. Personally I would be happy to race with it in races over 90 minutes on trails or mixed terrain and I have added the Single-Track to my shortlist of runners to use for races like the Wicklow Way Trail in Ireland (a 22k race featuring mixed trails and good stretches of tarmac). In fact the shoe would be perfect for off-road ultra-distance racing where the combination of lightness, sturdiness, and protection forms a holy trinity of ultra-running needs.
The shoe doesn’t compete directly with the extreme fell-running shoes such as Walshes and the Inov-8 Mudclaw series and would not be suitable for racing on soft and wet ground but that apart its versatile enough to make it a good investment.
So concludes my thoughts on my first experience with North Face and I think the company have unearthed a classic: There’s something “nice and simple” about the Single-Track and with its sturdy design I would expect to get a lot of racing and training mileage out of it before it falls to pieces.
The Numbers!
• Comfort: 4/5
• Design: 5/5
• Durability: 5/5
• Grip: 3/5
• Performance: 3.5/5 (5/5 for ultra-distance)
• Protection: 4/5
• Stability: 4.5/5
• Overall: 4/5 (Very Good)
