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Salomon S/Lab Ultra Glide Review: Light, Highly Stacked, Soft and Friendly All Around!
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Sep 23, 2024
In the video I review the Salomon S/Lab Ultra Glide a highly cushioned, highly stacked (41/35) and soft ultra shoe for the 30-40 hour racer. I also found it to be a superb max cushion road trainer. It features a new foot pressures relieving tech "Relieve Sphere" underfoot with the midsole Energy Foam and Energy Foam+ supercritical foam. Available Spring 2025. $250 The sample was provided at no cost by Salomon Running.
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Hi everybody. Today we're going to take a look at the Salomon S-Lab Ultraglide
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releasing 2025 for $250. It's Salomon's most cushioned trail runner to date, but
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it's more than a trail runner at 41-35 with a dual foam midsole and a new
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Relieve Sphere underfoot and midsole geometry. It has an upper, not matrix
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this time, but stretch knit with a lot of overlays. It was introduced in Chamonix
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at UTMB in a big event where Salomon got us all kitted up with the shoes
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t-shirt, so on, and took us up onto the top of the Brevent, where we ran, hiked
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down and up, and also had wonderful kind of food experiences that reflected
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characteristics of the shoe. So that was kind of the rougher trail stuff. After
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that I was able to run multiple times and hike in them in a variety of
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different places in Switzerland and also the US. So I ran along the coast 10 miles
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at a good solid pace, great road shoe. I hiked them and met some friends and I
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also took them for a very solid 8-mile gravel kind of trail ride run in the
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Engadine region. So here are my thoughts. First some details and then from the run
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commentary. Okay let's get into some of the details before I give you my from
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the run impressions from Switzerland and New Hampshire. So Salomon is positioning the S-Lab Ultra Glide as an ultra shoe for the ultra runner who's in
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the 30 to 40 hour range. And a light shoe at 10.3 ounces 292 grams
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approximately for a US 9 EU 42. So to accomplish that what they've done is go
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with Max Max cushion here 41 millimeters at the heel 35 millimeters at the
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forefoot. Now you'll see this very raised sidewall. Well that's the support. It's
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similar to what's in the Genesis and it's an unusual, it ended up being an
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unusual construction for Salomon. Let me show you how it works. They actually had
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to mold it in two separate halves and they join it with a glue line down the
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center. You'll also see the foam. There are two foams here. The insert is their Energy Foam Plus, a supercritical foam, same as in the
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Phantasm, S-Lab Phantasm and Spectre. And then the other foam is their Energy Foam
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which we find in the Genesis and many of their other shoes. And then you can
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see in the back here the Energy Foam Plus poking out. It is softer. So this is
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an unplated shoe. Although the glue line down the center does give it some
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rocker and rigidity. In terms of the flex, let me show you. Not much flex but
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there's a very nice rocker here. Let's get into the other key, key technical
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element before we get into the upper. So we have what Solomon is calling
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Relieve Spheres. These are concave elements at key pressure points of the
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stride and on the foot. From the toe, you can see here, metatarsals sort of
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towards the back of the metatarsals, midfoot, midfoot and heel. So what I
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found on the run is these two, these four actually are really really effective
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Definitely notice relief and pressure. It's particularly felt actually on the road. On trail what they do is sort of allow the shoe to conform to the terrain
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The front ones here on the toe off, a big toe side. So where we toe off over here
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you can see what it really plunges down. I think that's a bit thin. Let me, let me
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try to illustrate. When you get on rocks that's a bit thin. I think they could
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probably eliminate, eliminate that one and I'm not sure the heel one does too
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much good but the other four definitely felt. You'll also notice to kind of
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accommodate the Relieve Spheres, we have a quite dispersed outsole pattern of
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about four millimeter lugs, three and a half to four millimeter lugs. I think
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there could be more coverage through here. I'm not sure how they do it but there's a little bit of slip on on kind of loose gravel and also as I've run
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them most of the 30 miles, I've run them mostly, not mostly but at least half on
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firm surfaces such as road, gravel. I am seeing some wear already. A little hard
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to see but you can see there's already some wear. It's a fairly soft rubber but
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that rubber also gives this an incredibly mellow, mellow, mellow ride on
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firm surfaces. This is an incredible road trainer I would say if you want an
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unplated max cushion shoe with a lot of energy return and of course for ultras
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but I would say of the more mellow variety and that the mellow and the
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comfort because this is all about comfort here for long, long hours
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translates to the upper. This is not a matrix kind of upper as Salomon has done
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in most of their S-Lab shoes recently or all of them. It's actually a knit, kind of
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a knit material with some stretch so you have lots of toe box room and then
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there are a lot of overlays so the support is really good. The hold is good
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semi-rigid heel counter, lace garage works really well, easy to get to. We have
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a little bit of padding towards the top of the tongue under the garage, plenty of
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padding in the collars so this is a super comfort oriented shoe in my
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opinion. Okay in terms of fit, this is a USA 41 1 1 3 euro size shoe. I am
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usually a US 8.5. Sometimes the 41 1 1 3 is actually most of the time is
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ideal for me with a 42 a bit big so as far as US sizing I think it's marked a
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little lower than it actually is. I think very few people would
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need to size up in this shoe and as I did in US sizing you probably want to
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size down half a size especially if you have a narrower lower volume foot that
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would change if you have a higher volume foot but generally I think you probably
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want to refer to EU sizing here rather than US sizing to get a good fit and
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those rear walls really do keep it quite stable at the rear. If anything it's the
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front that could use a bit more stability and I mentioned the the
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relieve here you see how deep that goes that could be maybe more flattened out
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so it's an excellent excellent mellow long distance shoe for really any surface
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I wouldn't take it fast on on technical terrain when I tried that for me I just
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thought it was a bit too soft for that but if you're running 30 or 40 hours in
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an ultra you're probably not going super fast in the technical and on road it's
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as smooth as can be I'm gonna give you a commentary from some of the road and
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gravel I did. Excellent kind of gravel ultra shoe so let's get into some of the
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the impressions from the run. Where does it sit though before we get we go to
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that in the Salomon kind of lineup it's it's a shoe that's more Genesis if you
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will with higher stack more cushioned focus less on technical terrain it also
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is although it has a lot of stack as well the S slab ultra Francois Dane is
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also oriented towards more technical terrain probably the most technical terrain oriented shoe in the Salomon lineup it sort of fits in a bit with a
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say a fresh foam more trail of all things or or and I think really their
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key target because they told me was Hoka and the Mafatti speed which is a very
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popular UTMB shoe so this is their answer to that I haven't recently run in
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the Mafatti speed but it is a it is often the pick for the mid packer so
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let's get into those from the run impression. Okay, giving them a run here
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on the road in the Engadine very soft energetic excellent rocker this is I
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think if we're talking ultra here this might be a superb road ultra shoe as
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well as moderate trail one that glue line down the center I described really
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helps with the propulsion but this is a soft ride lots of rebound and a smooth
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roll off the front I would like to see the very front kind of curved area maybe
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tone down a bit right at the big toe feels a bit front of the big toe feels a
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bit thin as a result on trails but here on the road leads to a really nice toe
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off so this kind of single track just fine smooth stuff there was some mud
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pretty good grip in the mud very versatile this shoe so a lot of damage
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in recent storms here in Switzerland some of this pass was washed out but
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they moved it so here on gravel of course the traction is fantastic on
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gravel so what am I seeing this shoe for well it's certainly a trail shoe I
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would say in the Salomon lineup the S-lab ultra the AIME France or the AIME
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shoe is your more technical ultra kind of shoe this is for your more mellow
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terrain it's absolutely fantastic on this gravel and on pavement I could see
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this being easily a very good long run shoe also a great shoe if you like max
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cushion with some energy return and don't want to plate but you still want
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some active rocker because there's plenty here even with the flex because
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of the the relief sphere geometry and the way they put it together gonna keep
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going the river is the Inn River INN flows into Austria and Germany want to
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make a comment about the how the outsole plays here yeah we do have those three
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and a half to four millimeter lugs that are quite widely spaced but much as on
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the trail this is a very seamless kind of feel the outsole provides some rebound
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off the pavement with the softness we got that rocker off the front plays
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really well on the hard surfaces that conforming aspect and softness maybe not
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quite as effective if you will at high speeds on rougher trails but just a very
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kind of natural riding shoe here on pavement and on smoother stuff keep
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going beautiful okay so the $250 S slab ultra glide coming in in early 2025 is a
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very softly cushioned shoe that holds its own on certainly on road gravel
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moderate trails but for me it anyway it isn't a technical trail shoe it's all
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about comfort and deep cushion as such I think it's a really really excellent
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also road trainer if you want a max cushion unplated trainer with plenty of
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toe box room and plenty of comfort it is a great choice my concerns are as I as I
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said earlier the shallowness of the toe area on trail and also so far the wear
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of the outsole on firm firmer surfaces but all in all it's a it's a great new
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addition of the more mellow variety to Solomon's lineup thank you very much for
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watching the sample was provided at no cost by Solomon for this review
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