Even the sidewall cutouts exposing the Energy Blade plate - which is boldly labeled as such - manage to look purposeful, like an exhaust port label on an airplane, instead of flashy and showy as they might look on another shoe. Salomon’s design team has always been able to put out footwear that looks smoothly aggressive, and the Pulsar Trail is no exception. The Pulsar Trail looks and feels like a shoe that will propel you right through whatever your next run can throw your way. SAM: Salomon certainly knows how to make a shoe. That said, we all know how easy it is to mess up a recipe, so how did the Pulsar Trail fare? We’ve enjoyed some recent shoes with similar non-carbon plates, like the Saucony Endorphin Speed 3 (which has a nylon plate), and some other Salomon options with Energy Surge, like the S/Lab Phantasm. This should be a recipe for a winner of a shoe. The plate for the standard Pulsar Trail (this shoe) is softer and more pliable than its stiffer, more expensive partner in the Pulsar Trail Pro. It almost sounds like Salomon messed up on design day, but there’s one key difference. They also share an Energy Blade TPU composite plate sandwiched between the two layers of Energy Surge foam. The brand’s most recent introductions are the Pulsar Trail and Pulsar Trail Pro - two entries into the red-hot plated trail market.īoth versions of the Pulsar share Salomon’s proprietary Contagrip outsole, dual density Energy Surge midsole (32.6mm in the heel, 26.6mm in the forefoot), Endofit sleeve, and Quicklace pull laces. Salomon still offers its eighth-generation XA Pro 3D Ultra, but now they’ve expanded far beyond that point. Since then, hiking boots have fallen prey to the rise of the trail runner. It checked the boxes for weight, support, and price, with an unbelievable construction to match. My goal, as a mostly bored retail worker with a limited set of options, was to push them to the Salomon XA Pro 3D Ultra instead. As customers decided they needed more, they’d try to push for something burlier, like the Vasque Sundowner - a boot whose price tag seemed to describe its weight more than its comfort. They’d find their way into the Merrell Moab, the Vasque Breeze, or whatever Oboz was rolling with at the time. SAM: When I worked at Eastern Mountain Sports before they purged all stores south of New England (RIP EMS Annapolis), I’d fit customers for shoes along what I called a “footwear needs scale.” On one end, people just needed basic, casual hikers.
Could it be the best entry point for plated trail shoes?.
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