The Adidas SL20 is the first running shoe to move away from Boost and feature Adidas’ new Lightstrike midsole foam. It’s a lightweight training shoe with a 10mm drop, a mesh upper, a torsion plate – but no carbon plate. It’s designed to for faster miles and it drops in at a very reasonable £100 to compete with the likes of the HOKA Rincon, Nike Zoom Fly 3 and Brooks Hyperion Tempo. So how does it perform on the run? Run Testers, Nick, Tom and myself took it for a ride in this multi-tester Adidas SL20 review. Hit play to find out if this is the best running shoe you can buy for £100.
TLDW
The LightStrike cushioning: The Adidas SL20 run VERY firm – so if you like a more cushioned ride, you’re going to want to look elsewhere.
Weight: They are really light. I’m a big fan of lightweight shoes and these instantly felt more like my kinda shoe. Though they don’t quite disappear on the foot like a HOKA Rincon. And it took me a while to bed them in.
Responsiveness: They’re not as zippy as some shoes but I found they coped well with at marathon pace and over 20 miles. Though I did get some rubbing on the lower achilles and deeper into those miles they did start to feel a little unforgiving. I think I’d be more tempted to use these for shorter runs.
Could you race in them? Yes.
Are they the best race option? No
Grip: I’ve done some very wet rainy runs on tarmac and towpaths and I found I got really decent grip from that Continental rubber outsole that we’ve seen on previous shoes like the Adizero.
Adidas SL20 alternatives…
If you’re in the market for an uptempo training shoe, here are some of the other shoes that we’d consider rivals to the Adidas SL20.
- Nike Zoom Fly 3 – 252g, £139.95, 8mm drop
- HOKA Rincon – 218g, £105.00, 5mm drop
- Adidas Adizero Boston 8 – 238g, £119.95, 10mm drop
- Adidas Adizero RC 2.0 230g, £84.95, 10mm drop
