I love my Adidas springblade trainers but the fault in them is pretty major.
Originally I thought it might be a technical problem with that one trainer but it turned out to be much more that just a one off. I actually bought 2 of them in different colours and slightly different style but had to send one back to Adidas for a full refund. They also offered a refund on the other one but I wanted to keep it as I kinda hoped superglue would help things. They did give me a part refund anyway.
They were excellent about it all, can’t point the finger at them for customer service. but I’ve carefully wore the other pair.
However in almost a 2 years since I bought them and wearing them here and there mainly during summer, I looked at them again to see if I could fix things with glue, sponge or something else. I noticed something else was not right with the other shoe too.
To explain from the pictures; the blades (as they are called) are quite solid to support the weight of the wearer. The blades are set at a angle, so they slightly bend giving an amazing but slight bounce to walking and running. I can’t tell you how amazing it feels, and I’ve worn all types of trainers including Nike Air. I still remember wearing them on a walk form Check point charlie to krutzberg while on the Mozilla retreat in Berlin.
But the rigidity nature makes it not good with the usual bending of shoe. There is some give but not enough and ultimately the rigid blades break away from the base unit. Not in a loose your heel in a street vent style but rather it cracks away from the base. This is where I was applying super glue but it would last a certain amount of time before the glue would break again.
To be fair the reviews are not that impressive either, no idea what they would write if they had it longer. To me it was clear as day for me when the blade break had happened on the opposite shoe in the exact same manor.
I think Adidas may have gone too far with the blades and the Adidas A3 & Bounces were a better idea for general use. Especially when it came to traction with the floor. Having too little actual contact with the floor made any hint of rain on the road a hazard for walking on. It s a real shame because they are incredibly engineered trainers.
Some will say over-engineered? Maybe thats why I love them so…?
