Article by Peter Stuart and Derek LI
New Balance Fresh Foam X Balos ($200)
Introduction
Peter: The Balos is a brand new shoe in the New Balance line. We got a glimpse of these at The Running Event this year, and I was very excited to get a pair. The Balos is a cushioned daily trainer with a PEBA/EVA midsole, a pronounced rocker and a fairly plush engineered mesh upper. It’s fairly light weight and has a decent amount of rubber (actually mostly rubberized Ground Contact EVA) for its outsole so they should last well. On paper, the Balos has everything I’d want in a modern daily trainer. There’s a big gap, though, between a recipe and the final product. So how does the Balos do?
Pros:
Relatively lightweight Peter
Comfortable Plush upper Peter
Good cushioning/weight ratio Derek
Cons:
Underwhelming ride Peter
Forefoot feels a little dead Peter
Rocker effect not very strong Derek
Knitted tongue absorbs a lot of sweat in warm conditions Derek
Stats
Spec Weight: men's 8.85 oz / 250g US9
Sample Weights: men’s 8.6 oz / 243g US8.5, 8.96oz / 254g US9.5
Stack Height: men’s 38.5 mm heel / 32.5 mm forefoot ( 6mm drop)
measure Platform Width: 90 mm heel / 75 mm midfoot / 110 mm forefoot
$200. Available now including at New Balance HERE
First Impressions, Fit and Upper
Peter: As I mentioned above, I had high hopes for the Balos. Ideally the Balos would fill in the gap between the Rebel and the SC Trainer in the NB lineup–a lighter daily trainer that you can cruise in for miles and miles.
The idea of a PEBA/EVA blend is intriguing and, if done right, would combine the easy cruising of the SC Trainer with the slightly more fun and snappy Rebel V4.
Out of the box, the Balos looks like a more “casual” shoe than either the SC or the Rebel. I’m not sure if it’s the colorway or the actual build of the shoe, but to me these look a little more like lawn mowing shoes than running shoes. I’m being harsh, and of course sometimes looks can be deceiving.
The Balos fit true-to-size and are very comfortable on step-in. The cushioning feels good and they lace up easily and hold well. Upper is plush, the tongue is a good thickness and they feel quite stable.
Derek: The Balos ticks all the boxes on paper with its high stack, PEBA blended midsole, and rockered profile for a non-plated super trainer so I was very excited to get to test this shoe.
The lack of any leaked photos on the shoe on social media and New Balance’s deliberate attempts to keep it under wraps at TRE also added to the intrigue and anticipation around this shoe.
With a $200 price tag, one certainly expects the ride to live up to the pre-release hype. Opening the box, I was greeted with a design that borders on athleisure-esque and that took me by surprise.
NB typically releases designs that you can sort of tell right away if it’s meant to be a trainer or a racer. Here the shoe looks like it would be equally at home on the roads as it would nestled up in a library. Sometimes I forget that NB is headquartered right next to Harvard University.
Step is feel is quite good and the shoes feel soft and springy underfoot.
The upper looks like tweed from a distance, but on closer inspection, it’s actually made of a dual layer of fine synthetic outer mesh (white in this case) and an inner threaded knit (brown in this case).
These two layers juxtaposed give you that white/brown appearance.
Aesthetically it looks really good.
There is plenty of padding around the ankle opening, befitting a premium trainer.
It also has a vented cushioning pattern that should help to let the shoe breathe a bit better.
The tongue itself is a thicker knitted material and is gusseted on both sides. Finishing things off, the shoe comes stock with a thick Ortholite sockliner.
The fit is true to size, and the toe box volume is fairly generous, but I would not consider this a wide shoe.
In fact, the shoe cradles you at midfoot quite well, with mildly raised midsole sidewalls there. I was able to get a good lockdown with the shoes quite easily with a variety of sock thicknesses so it should fit most people quite well.
Midsole & Platform
Peter: The platform is wide and stable.
Again, the Balos feels like a more casual running shoe than a tempo or racing shoe. The midsole, made of a blend of PEBA and EVA should be more exciting than it feels. I’ve put a ton of miles on the Balos trying to figure out what is off about the midsole. It’s not that it is too soft or too firm, the density actually feels pretty good. I guess if I had to tweak it I’d make it slightly firmer.
Though there's rocker/cambered geometry, the Balos feels like it gets stuck on the forefoot during landing/takeoff. It’s not bad, but it’s just a bit of a dead spot.
Overall the ride feels more chunky than lithe–this may have more to do with the overly soft rubberized foam outsole.
Derek: I can sort of see Peter’s viewpoint with this shoe. The midsole is fairly soft, much more so than say NB Rebel, which to me is a good thing. The public likes soft and bouncy these days.
Where things don’t quite jive is that despite the high stack and the rockered profile, the shoe doesn’t actually feel rockered when you run in it. There is just too much flex through the forefoot and it makes the rocker ineffective. The midsole is soft, and bouncy, and once you get up to a decent rhythm, the shoe does spring along quite smoothly, but don’t expect it to give you a very strong rocker effect.
Cushioning is good, and for the softness of the midsole, there is no bottoming out for me. If I were judging the midsole just based on its innate springiness and cushioning, it would score really highly. In fact, I think this midsole is way more lively than that of the SC Elite 4.
Outsole
Peter: The outsole is GCEVA–which stands for Ground Contact EVA outsole. To be fair, I’m not sure exactly what that means. There seems to be some more traditional rubber (black) and some exposed GCEVA (brown) to the make up of the outsole. Traction has been fine and I haven’t seen any appreciable wear on the shoes despite a solid number of miles.
Derek: As Peter points out, NB is using mostly ground contact EVA for the outsole. If you look at the picture here, the light brown pods are the GCEVA.
It feels like a rubberized EVA, similar to what we had with the Hoka Clayton and Huaka a couple of years back or the midsole as outsole in the Mach 5. Ok maybe more than a couple of years, but it’s not particularly new technology.
Rubberized EVA is also very springy, and helps to accentuate the midsole feel, so you feel more of that springiness underfoot. The downside is that it tends not to be very durable. So far I have not seen very excessive wear here, but I would bet that it is not going to be as durable as traditional rubber or polyurethane based outsoles.
The black outsole at the lateral heel and the dark brown outsole at the tip of the forefoot is, however, is a much firmer, likely carbon injected rubber outsole, and that is probably going to be quite durable. All in all the outsole performs fairly well in terms of grip. It performs exceptionally well in terms of compliance and I guess that is the goal when you use EVA in this manner. There are always trade-offs with this approach, and here, the result is a lot less snappiness through the forefoot because there is no stiff rubber to maintain the rocker shape (in the absence of a carbon plate).
Ride, Conclusions and Recommendations
Peter: Sigh, I wish I was more excited by the Balos. On paper it is completely my kind of shoe. I like the Rebel V4 and the SC Trainer so much that I may have gotten overly excited about a shoe that is ostensibly right there in the middle between them. That said, the Rebel is far snappier and a much better tempo shoe and the SC Trainer is a much better recovery/easier run shoe that, for me, rides much smoother.
The Balos feels chunky and ponderous on the run and, as much as I’ve tried to enjoy them, I find myself reaching for other daily trainers first.
Overall. the road-feel of the Balos is just not that exciting. There are other shoes out there that are similar that are just much more fun to run. They are, however, very comfortable and will probably find a place in my daily wear-around-town collection.
Peter’s Score: 7.5 / 10
The ride is kind of blah and they’re $200. For me there are at least 2 shoes I prefer in the NB lineup alone, The SC trainer for long runs and recovery and the Rebel V4 for speedier, snappier runs.
Peter’s Smiles Score: 😊😊😊
Derek: The ride of the Balos is cushioned and springy. It has a very soft underfoot feel, and tends to feel most energetic at a moderate pace and you do need to work to keep in that sort of sweet spot sub-threshold area.
As the pace picks up, you start to feel like you are fighting the shoe a little bit and have to consciously maintain a more forward foot strike to get through transition quickly. Then the transition becomes increasingly ponderous at slower easy paces. So to me the shoe ironically has a relatively narrow sweet spot to play in.
A lot of this boils down to the rocker not being stiff enough in my opinion. This is likely a combination of the soft foam and the very soft rubberized EVA outsole that spans the main part of the forefoot rocker.
New Balance would do well to come up with a stiff section of outsole rubber to maintain the curvature of the forefoot rocker, similar to what was on the Endorphin Shift. In a sense, I struggled a bit with the ride of the Nike Invincible v1 and v2 for a similar reason.
All in all, I think the Balos works as a daily trainer/easy run shoe, similar to the Nike Invincible, but just don’t expect it to do very well as an uptempo shoe.
The shoe is not the most stable, so if you need any kind of stability at all, this shoe is probably not going to work for you as your ankles will likely be working a lot more to maintain stability.
Beyond this, I think most people should be able to fit the shoe fairly easily, and my main caveat is for people who run in warm humid conditions. The tongue is a relatively thick layer of knit and the whole shoe can feel on the warmer side.
Derek’s Score 8.73 / 10
Ride (50%): 8.5 Fit (30%): 9.5 Value (15%): 7.5 Style (5%): 10
Smiles score 😊😊😊
5 Comparisons
Index to all RTR reviews: HERE
ASICS Superblast 2 (RTR Review)
Peter: Superblast is less clunky, more fun.
Mizuno Neo Vista (RTR Review)
Peter: The Neo Vista is such a weird moon boot but I love it. It’s way less stable feeling than the Balos, but infinitely more fun. No contest here. Neo Vista all day long.
Derek: I am true to size in both shoes. While the Neo Vista is immensely popular among other testers, I did find the shoe a bit flat feeling and having not enough rocker. In this respect, the higher heel-toe drop of the Balos actually makes it a better transitioning shoe than the Neo Vista for me. Neo Vista is softer and more cushioned, but the Balos with a higher effective drop actually rolls through a little bit better for me. Overall it’s actually very close. Both shoes are a bit warm. Neo Vista I would say, has a slightly more versatile range of paces it can work at, even if the transition is a little more traditional than the Balos. Between the two, I would go with Neo Vista for being a little more versatile and having the bouncier ride.
361 Eleos (RTR Review)
Peter: The Eleos is in the same general category as the Balos and is way smoother through the gait cycle and more fun to put miles on. For my money, the $145 Eleos is the best daily trainer of the year, so far.
New Balance FuelCell SC Trainer v2 (RTR Review)
Peter: The SC is heavier but more pleasant to run in. It moves through toe-off more easily and absorbs the miles better.
Nike ZoomX Invincible 2 (RTR Review)
Derek: I didn’t test Invincible 3, but I did test v1 and v2. I am true to size in all the models. Both Invincibles I think had around a 37mm heel so a fairly close comparison to the Balos, and especially so considering both shoes have very similar sort of underfoot softness.
I think the Balos has a slightly more rockered feel than the Invincible, but all 3 shoes suffer from being stuck in second gear if you will, being a bit too flexible through the forefoot to be enjoyable for uptempo paces.
Both Invincible 1 and 2 were fairly warm shoes and the Balos does a better job with heat management here but is still on the warmer side as far as performance shoes go.
Overall the Balos is the better shoe for me if I were looking for an easy run trainer.
Tester Profiles
Peter lives in California and has been a sub 3 hour marathoner as well as a 1:21 half marathoner in recent years.
Derek is in his 40’s and trains 70-80 miles per week at 7 to 8 minute pace in mostly tropical conditions in Singapore. He has a 2:39 marathon PR from the 2022 Zurich Marathon.
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