Brandblack Tarantula ($225)
Never heard of Brandblack? Well Brandblack, out of Los Angeles, is well known for wild and rugged street and fashion sneakers.
Yet the founders have a deep background in performance running and other sports at Skechers Performance (who initially funded Brandblack but now they are independent) and before that adidas and Fila.
The Tarantula, the brand's first performance running shoe is named after that horror movie favorite spider which in fact is misunderstood as it is a gentle creature. Brandblack says they too are misunderstood and have set out to prove it with the Tarantula. The Tarantula is all high performance, all terrain running.
It brings together a state of the art supercritical foam Jetlon midsole similar to Skechers Hyperburst with lots of rebound and cushion.
It has a thick but well segmented full contact smooth that is smooth quiet on the road, but grippy on most trails Vibram XS Trek outsole (Brandblack acts as an official design studio for Vibram) under a broad and stable relatively low stack (18mm/25mm) platform
The result is a super versatile shoe that so far has been exciting to run on every terrain from road to trail, almost 30 miles in 3 days of running and hiking I even took them on an 11 mile hike high in the Unita Mountains of Utah on moderate terrain (shown in the video) and while there is no rock plate protection was excellent and I am none the worse for wear the next day.
Build quality is superb. I expect long term durability to be excellent. All reflecting well on the premium $225 pricing here with more testing to come.
Approx. weight is 10.75 oz / 305g so in the range of super premium road trainers and all purpose trail shoes focused on smoother terrain, both categories it plays equally well in.
WATCH THE TARANTULA VIDEO REVIEW (7:00)
The Tarantula is available from BrandBlack HERE
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