Article by Bryan Lim
Shyu Racing Socks ($20-$24USD)
Introduction
Bryan: It’s not every day that something big in running comes out from where I live in Melbourne, Australia. In Shyu’s earlier days, which was not too long ago, I had the pleasure of participating in one of their photoshoots. I recall sporting the Pine Green socks paired with the Velvet Pine / Hazard Yellow Metaspeed Sky+.
The concept of Shyu is fantastic where the main man behind it is able to get ahead of the curve to source the exact colourway of flagship running shoes across the big brands and then manufacture perfectly matching socks. Running these days is all about the kit!
First Impression & design
Bryan: My first impression was in mid-2023 and it was revolutionary, not just from an aesthetic point of view but also performance wise. I have almost exclusively run in Shyu on road race days since then.
As part of this review, I received two pairs, black / white / red and black / red / red to match my pairs of Adidas Adios Pro 4 and Evo SLs respectively. These socks are well made, and no changes in design have been made since I last wore them.
Note the socks come in three lengths, no-show which only comes in white and black, quarter crew and half crew. You can see that Nils’ Adios Pro 4 (silver metallic / lucid red) is half crew in length and his Vaporfly 4 (crimson red) is a quarter crew.
Material
Bryan: Whilst I generally prefer running in cotton socks, the Shyus, composed of 97% nylon and 3% elastane, handles sweat well and its anatomical design including arch support provide good grip inside the shoe. It’s on the thicker side of socks which provide good cushioning for race day and have surprisingly held up well in warmer conditions such as at Comrades Marathon where temperatures hovered around 25 and sunny for the final 3-4 hours of the race.
Performance
Bryan: Having worn Shyu socks in 8 marathons and 2 ultramarathons, all road, I can attest to their performance. Unlike Markus (his Shyu review here) I did not receive a ‘training’ version so my review only extends to the ‘racing’ version. Personally, the ‘racing’ version is amply thick enough for my preference and suffices for all purposes.
The fit is fantastic, with no hot spots that promote blistering, and is mildly supportive and structured. There is no slippage throughout. I note there is some compression and even as a size US9, and having sized up once from a Medium (up to US9.5) to a Large, the larger size also worked fine but for a lack of compression.
Shop for Shyu Socks
Tester
Bryan Liim lives in Melbourne, Australia. He picked up running in mid-2016 as a stressed-out law school student and ended up running a full marathon as his first event. Ever since, he has focussed on becoming a better runner, with PRs of 1:22 in the half-marathon and 2:58 in the marathon. Bryan also enjoys longer distances and trail events, and has run Comrades in South Africa and his own driveway ultra (52km over 838 laps). Whilst enjoying running, he has taken the community aspect of things with passion. Bryan is an accredited Athletics Australia community coach, was the running coach at adidasRunners Melbourne, runs his own local track club, Glasshouse Run Club and is a pacer at local races.Europe only: use RTR code RTR5ALL for 5% off all products, even sale products
I also often have problems with socks that cause blisters when running marathons, reading your review makes me very curious about Shyu. Especially the fact that you used them for Comrades and many marathons and still found them comfortable is really convincing.
ReplyDelete