The Mount to Coast T1. All photos: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
When it comes to a shoe that can excel on a variety of terrains, the Mount to Coast T1 ($180) has an exceptional combination of a durable upper with a comfortable toebox, a LightCELL midsole with a 4-millimeter drop and 36-millimeter stack height under the heel, and a Vibram Megagrip outsole for exceptional traction with Litebase technology for a lower weight. This is a shoe that can handle anything from road-to-trail runs with its 4-millimeter lugs to technical trails with slippery roots and rocks. With its unique lacing system, it’s easy to get good midfoot lockdown, and the toebox provides plenty of space for toe splay.
Weighing 9.2 ounces (260 grams) for a U.S. men’s size 9, the shoe is light and lively and provides just enough support to handle technical terrain.
In the video below, iRunFar’s Travis Liles takes a look at the Mount to Coast T1 and explains how its features work together to create a comfortable, solid shoe that performs well in nearly any situation.
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[Editor’s Note: If you are unable to see the video above, click here to watch it.]
Mount to Coast T1 Review Transcript
Hey, and welcome to Trail Trials, a video review section of iRunFar.com. My name is Travis Lilles, and in this video, we are going to take a look at the Mount to Coast T1. Let’s check it out.
Alright, so let’s start off with some specs here. This is the T1, T standing for Trail, from Mount to Coast. It comes in at a 4-millimeter drop: 36 millimeters of stack at the heel, 32 millimeters at the toe. It is listed as above-medium cushioning, but below plush, so it’s not a big, thick, heavy outsole, but there’s a pretty good amount of cushioning here. It has 4-millimeter Vibram lugs, and an interesting lacing system that I cut off. And lastly, it comes in at right around nine ounces in a U.S. men’s size 9, which is what we’re holding right here. With all that said, let’s get up close and personal. Let’s see what this shoe is all about.
Mount to Coast T1 Outsole
The Vibram Megagrip Litebase outsole of the Mount to Coast T1.
Alright, so let’s jump into the outsole of the Mount to Coast T1. So, we’ll start off by talking about the fact that it’s Vibram. You’ve got a little logo here. You’ve got one here on the bottom. This is the Vibram Megagrip compound, very standard on high-end trail running shoes. This is, I think, the gold standard as it relates to most trail running. It was exciting when the new Saucony Peregrine 16 (review) added Vibram Megagrip to their lineup — they’d been doing their own compounds for a while. The new Hoka Speedgoat 7 (review), of course, has this as well. Nike uses it in some of their trail running shoes. It’s exciting to see this also incorporate that.
But on top of being Megagrip, which is a really good, all-around high-friction, good gripping outsole, it’s also Litebase, which is the lighter version of Megagrip, so this tread is 45% lighter than normal Megagrip. [Editor’s Note: According to Vibram, the weight reduction is 30%.] And then it also has the Traction Lugs here, which I can see here with these little dots all the way around the lugs. And the idea here is it adds surface area to the lug so that it’s not just sort of flat. The idea being the more surface area, the better the thing is going to grip in all directions. So just something to keep in mind. It’s hard to quantify if it works or not. What I do know is that this type of outsole, in all of the shoes that I test and wear and tend to race and run in, this is my top favorite compound for trail running shoes.
These are 4-millimeter lugs. You can see that here. They transition well. They grip well. You don’t notice them if you’re on pavement or road. They kind of get out of the way, but they definitely add grip when you need them to. Slick stuff, wet stuff, snow, mud, you name it. This is a really good all-around tread. And then, from the lugging standpoint, pretty well-varied lugs all the way throughout. Forward-facing lugs in the front, rear-facing lugs in the back. Fairly standard for what you’d expect, but again, good implementation here.
A couple things I’ll call out here. You see some cutouts here on the bottom. Obviously done for weight savings, but also note you don’t see any type of rock plate in here. So you’re relying on the foam and the tread. And except for some very specific ways that your foot can land, for the most part, your foot is protected and generally in good shape, unless you bang it directly in one of these spots with something super specific. So just something of note here.
Mount to Coast T1 Midsole
A medial view of the Mount to Coast T1 LightCELL midsole.
The Mount to Coast T1 midsole is a single-density foam, again, 4-millimeter drop. This is a 36-millimeter to 32-millimeter stack height (heel/toe), so lower to the ground, better feel. But what this is using is a LightCELL. This is a proprietary midsole of Mount to Coast. Just like the Mount to Coast H1 (review), it is supercritical foam [Editor’s Note: The Mount to Coast H1 uses the CircleCELL supercritical foam.], which generally means that they’re just a little more lightweight. So they say that this is 50% lighter than the EVA of the same type of foam that you might have, and has 45% longer life. [Editor’s Note: The foam has a 45% higher energy return, not longer life.]
And so all I can say is I’ve got well over a hundred miles in this shoe, and the foam feels pretty much like it did on day one. I think, in general, it’s holding up really well. You can see there are some creases and that type of stuff in it, but it’s not compressed down too far. It still feels really good.
I would say this is an energetic outsole, meaning that it has a bit of a rocker curve to it, but it’s not super pronounced. But when you are running on it, and you’re running fast — you’re running downhill, even road running — this is a midsole that feels energetic, which is something that I probably look for more as I get older. I like to have a little spring in my step, and I feel like this shoe definitely does that, while having the safety of being a lower drop and not a maximalist stack height.
Mount to Coast T1 Upper
The Mount to Coast T1 upper offers durability and a good lockdown.
Okay, let’s move on to the Mount to Coast T1 upper. I’ll start with the lacing system just because if you’ve looked at anything Mount to Coast, you’ll know that this doesn’t look right. This was the very first Mount to Coast that I got, and I didn’t like the speed lacing on both. And I didn’t pay attention, and I cut them both out. This is what a brand-new Mount to Coast looks like. You have two speed lacing systems, but it comes with a card, and that card tells you cut out the top or bottom and then add in these laces. I chose, accidentally, to just cut everything out, and then realized after the fact that this lace is not long enough to cover all of these. You’re only supposed to do one or the other. But as you can see, if you don’t like speed lacing at all, cut it out, find a set of laces that fits in there for you, and go on about your day.
Next up is this upper. The upper is made out of a Kevlar material. And so Kevlar — bulletproof vest — we see things like Dyneema-types of materials. So these more-robust-than-mesh materials, there is a downside that they’re not as supple. They’re not as plush. They tend to not grip as well, and they sort of get crinkly. This has some of that, but I think in general, this is probably one of the better implementations I’ve seen of a high-abrasion, high-wear upper. Again, this has got well over a hundred miles on it, and it’s not threading anywhere. There are no places where it’s starting to come apart, so this upper is holding up really well. And again, it’s not super baggy. You can see a little bit of that kind of stuff in here, but overall, this locks down well. It’s soft enough that I think it conforms to your foot. And so, it’s a nice intermediary between durability and comfort. Is it the most comfortable shoe I’ve ever worn? It’s not, but it is one that I can wear for a really, really long time and not have any negative feelings about it.
A couple of things here: the lacing system we talked about. You’ve got good lockdown here at the top. There are not any threads or anchor points or anything like that that I can find when you sort of feel inside of the shoe, with the exception of the ways that this patterning is done on the shoe. But in general, there’s not a whole lot here structure-wise other than the upper and the lacing system. And somehow it does a really good job of keeping that athletic feel. And what that means is there’s not a bunch of stuff on the inside of the shoe that can irritate your foot.
The tongue is very much just like a stretchy fabric sock. And so that part is great. It goes all the way down to the bottom part of the shoe. This is all one piece. It is wide. It keeps debris out. It’s an internal midfoot wrap. But I wish there was a little more thickness here, but overall, it does a pretty good job. And then if you keep those quicklace systems in, you’ve got a pocket here to push those tabs into. If not, it actually gives a little bit of extra protection by being this piece of fabric that folds over right where the top eyelet is.
And then the last couple of things I’ll talk about here, the heel’s a little bit tall. If you’re someone who doesn’t like a shoe kind of up on their Achilles, this is a little bit of a taller kind of ramp here. And it’s somewhat firm, but it does break down easy enough. This top part specifically doesn’t have any structure to it. It’s just sort of the fabric of the shoe. Once you get down really to about where the tag, where it says T1, there’s a structured heel cup that this is going to fold over too. And so, a little bit in there, but again, it’s not an overly aggressive, super hard cup. Just enough there to maintain structure and keep your foot locked in.
And then lastly, up here on the front, the toebox is nice and wide, especially for being sort of an athletic fit-type of shoe. You have enough room for your toes to wiggle, but a decent amount of protection as well.
And then the very, very last thing I’ll call out, because of the way that this shoe is built, by having kind of very low amounts of fabric and sort of paneling and things like that all over, water tends to escape out of here fairly well. A definite positive in my book.
Mount to Coast T1 Overall Impressions
The Mount to Coast T1 offers performance in a variety of conditions.
In closing, I’m a big fan of the Mount to Coast T1. I think it really straddles an interesting line. And if I were to compare it to two other shoes that I like, there’s the Saucony Peregrine, the new ones, and then there’s the Hoka Speedgoat, the new ones. And I think this is a shoe that’s sort of right in between those two. It’s got a little more cushion than the Peregrines do, and it’s got a little more lively, athletic feel than the Speedgoat does. And I think it’s a really good compromise.
There’s some stuff on here that is, I think, interesting. The lacing system, which was, again, cut out. I had this shoe before I had the H1s, which have this lacing system, which has already got the quick-pull and then the regular laces up top. This would be the route that I would go if I had to do it again. I wouldn’t cut all of it out. I would just cut the top out. In fact, I have another pair that you saw in the video, and I’m going to do just that.
They ride well. I’ve done hybrid routes. I’ve done trail running. I’ve done all kinds of stuff in these through the winter. Our winter out here had not a ton of snow, but wet and soppy. And it’s Megagrip, and it does what it always does on all the shoes. It does a really good job of doing what you hope it does, which is grip on those surfaces. Would I like the tread depth a little bit deeper? I would, but that’s kind of a minor thing overall. This thing does great. It transitions well. It’s smooth. It’s just one of those shoes that does a little bit of everything.
The only thing I think is lacking is the tongue, and that happens so much now that it is just a recurring thing over and over again. I’d like a little bit of a cushion there, like what the H1 has, which is a proper tongue, and just to keep those laces from pushing down on the top of your foot. But overall, good toebox room, good transition. The upper seems to be holding up well. Despite it being a Kevlar — or you see in Dyneema and XPAC, and all these kinds of different types of uppers that tend to be a little stiff — this is a good middle ground, I feel like. So good athletic fit. Great shoe. I’m excited about this. I’ll be racing and training in a lot of miles in this shoe in the upcoming season.
Questions, comments, leave those below the video. Thanks for watching. We’ll catch you next time.
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Call for Comments
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