The Norda 005. All photos: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
The Norda 005 ($325) is the third true trail shoe from Canadian brand, Norda. It balances elements of a super shoe with greater durability, while still remaining lightweight.
The shoe has a 28.5 to 21.5-millimeter stack height, heel to toe, for a 7-millimeter drop, and has an actual weight of 8.1 ounces (230 grams) for a U.S. men’s 9.5. We weighed a 9.5 rather than our standard men’s 9, as it truly runs an entire half size small.
In this video, iRunFar reviewer Travis Liles takes a deep dive into everything you need to know about the Norda 005.
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Norda 005 Review Transcript
Hey and welcome to Trail Trials, the video review section of iRunFar.com. My name is Travis Liles, and in this video we’re going to take a look at the Norda 005. Let’s check it out.
Let’s start off with the specs on the Norda 005. This is from the brand Norda. This is their third trail shoe, though they’ve got a bunch of variations. They had the Norda 001, the Norda 002. There’s a Norda 003, that’s kind of a recovery slip-on type of shoe. But I’d say for trail running, this is their third official shoe, and they went all-in on this one. So, this has a 21.5-millimeter toe [stack height], a 28.5-millimeter heel for a 7-millimeter drop. Listed on the website in a men’s size 8.5, the shoe weighs in at 7.5 ounces, so super lightweight. [Editor’s note: When we weighed the men’s U.S. size 9.5, it came in at 8.1 ounces (230 grams).]
It’s got a really interesting upper. It’s got a brand new type of midsole that’s supposed to be bouncy and durable. And last but not least, down here on the bottom using Vibram’s Megagrip Elite, which is the newest, latest and greatest compound, weighing in super light, being super sticky from Vibram. So, let’s get up close and personal. Let’s see what this shoe is all about.
Let’s start off here and talk a little bit about sizing. This is a U.S. 9.5. I generally wear a 9 in Saucony, in Nike, and Hoka, just to give a couple of brands there. Norda actually recommends going up a half size. If you’re kind of in between sizes, you may need to experiment, and go up a half or a full size.
Norda 005 Outsole
The outsole of the Norda 005.
Let’s talk about the Norda 005 outsole. This is using Vibram Megagrip Elite. This is a new compound from Vibram. It is super sticky. It’s a combination of Megagrip, which you see very much in the trail running industry. You see Lightbase, which is the lightweight version of Megagrip. And then this adds the third portion here, which is the Elite. It’s sticky, and it’s even lighter than the other ones. And so, throughout this shoe, you’re going to see this sort of line that’s being walked between performance, weight, and durability. There’s a bit of a combo of all of those three things at play, and it’s sort of a compromise in some places and it’s a benefit in others. So, it just sort of depends on what you’re looking for in a shoe.
Megagrip Elite is very sticky. When you’re walking on smooth surfaces, slick surfaces, you can hear this. It actually feels like peeling tape off of the ground. It’s very, very sticky, and I think it performs well in a lot of scenarios where other compounds don’t, in terms of the traction and sticking to slick surfaces.
Where I don’t think it does as well is in the tread area. And so, you can see from the tread pattern, you have a little bit of the starting of these forward-facing lugs that dig in as you’re going uphill, and you’ve got a little bit of that here in the back. And then there’s these T-shaped lugs and I just didn’t feel great about this tread patterning here. It’s fine, but that’s as much as I want to give to it. But I think it’s important to break up tread pattern versus the outsole material. And so it’s sticky, it does well on slick stuff. This stuff does not do great on places where traction is a premium. The lugs are short, and I don’t know that this sort of lug design does anything special. So I would like a little more grip, I just want call that out, as something to think about.
But overall, you have complete coverage across the whole shoe. There’s no cutouts. And I would say the fact that this is a 7.5-ounce shoe that they’re able to do that is a testament to just how lightweight the Megagrip Elite is.
Norda 005 Midsole
A medial view of the Norda 005.
Next up, let’s look at the Norda 005 midsole here. It’s a single density foam. It’s very squishy. It’s very flexible, but it’s also very responsive and stable. It’s sort of a unicorn of a midsole. I feel about as good on mile 100+ training in this shoe as I do mile one. And so, anybody that’s had these shoes, that are kind of high bounce and high rebound, knows that over time, they get sort of a dead feeling as time goes on. I’m not at mile 300, 400, 500 in this shoe. But they felt great at mile one, and I think they feel about the same now. And you can see a little bit of this veining and that sort of stuff, but it’s not really compressed down. We don’t have a ton of wrinkling that can happen on other shoes over time where the midsole flattens out.
So, this compound feels great, moves great, I wear it on roads. And I’d say from a propulsion standpoint, this shoe feels as good to me as just about any other road shoe that I have, if not better. So, I actually really like these for road, despite the fact that the Megagrip Elite may wear down over time because it’s not a long-living outsole. But your foot sits down inside of it. You kind of sit down a little bit below this line, which adds to some of the stability of the midsole.
And this is a wider platform. You don’t have this very narrow archway and all that. This shoe fits overall kind of wide. And again, for a super shoe, for a fast shoe, for that model of race shoe, it’s good to have one that’s got a little more space in it versus being really about being narrow and pointy and precise. So again, we’ll talk about the upper here, but just know overall there’s room for your toes to wiggle, and you don’t feel like super smashed in and cramped in this shoe.
Norda 005 Upper
A lateral view of the Norda 005.
Next up is the Norda 005 upper, and this is made out of Bio-Dyneema. And if you’re not familiar with that material, it’s the same type of material that’s used in marine applications. So, think a sail on a boat would be made out of this. So, it’s really high strength at low weight. And I would say if you’ve checked out Norda at all, this is the best implementation that I think they’ve had. This is the most fabricy, and you can see it and hear it in the way that it feels. It’s less crinkly and papery feeling.
A lot of ultralight backpacks are made out of Dyneema. It’s the same type of thing, and you know it’s that white-ish color with the grids in it. Same type of concept and material here, this is just on the upper. And what you’re getting out of that is high durability, high abrasion resistance, while being super lightweight, so it won’t tear hopefully as much as mesh.
And if I look at the shoe overall, even in some of these pinch points on other shoes, you might see some fraying and things like that. None of this, despite being dirty and muddy and going through various conditions here in the Pacific Northwest. I think it’s holding up really well. Even these things that are bonded onto the upper, there’s a little bit of wrinkling, but you’re not seeing any tears, which just in today’s shoe industry, you see a whole lot of that. So again, durability on the upper, durability on the midsole, and as a brand they really try to push that idea of durability overall.
Couple other things here. There’s a very simple tongue. It is just this suede-type material. Very slick, very smooth, very minimal, but not too bad in terms of locking the shoe down on top of your foot. I don’t feel a lot of pressure on here, which some shoes can cause. I don’t know what it is specifically. There is no padding here, but I don’t feel like I get a ton of pressure on the top. It could be because this is just a wider type of fit. There is a bit of gusseting in here that I can show. So that’s right here, this material, to keep the dirt out, and that gusseting goes from down at the bottom eyelet just about up to the second to the top eyelet.
And then the other thing I’ll note here is in here it looks like a little bit of a glove. But basically what that is is a way to keep the upper and the laces at a little bit of a cage on the inside. And so, from a Norda standpoint, if you’ve worn them before, this is the most locked down of the Norda trail shoes. I can’t say on the 003s, those are slip-ons, but overall, this is the most precise fit of the Nordas. But because you have a 7.5-ounce shoe, that very loose upper paired up with this heel that’s very loose and malleable. It’s just not a super locked down fit for my foot, but it is way better.
They’ve added in these little pods on the side that just add some more comfort and volume to squeeze your foot in there. But there’s no heel cup here, so you lose rigidity. Maybe it adds comfort, but you lose rigidity back here. And it also just can’t lock down. You can see even when you pull it this way, it sort of allows this to move around. So, you lose a little bit on the stability front with this upper, but again, you’ve got that cage on the inside, which is definitely a welcome change.
The laces are 4-millimeter versus 5-millimeter. Again, a weight saving and they’ve got Dyneema in them, which is supposed to add durability. I had trouble keeping them tied, both in wet and dry conditions, so they’re ones that you need to double knot.
And then the last thing I’m going to call out is the shoe actually comes with two pairs of insoles. So, this is your daily insole that you wear, and you can see it’s cupped. It’s more of a standard look of an insole, and then it comes with race insoles. And if you look at this one, you can see the difference here. This is very, very flat. It’s just supposed to slide in there. This is all about weight. And I guess, again, with durability, these both come in the box, so you wear these for training, then when you’re going out and racing, you swap those out. So, you’ve got your other one, and then something a little more springy and less broken down, but also weight saving. So, they really concentrate on the race readiness of this shoe. So, with all that said, let’s talk about final impressions.
Norda 005 Overall Impressions
A top view of the Norda 005.
In closing, there’s a lot to like about the Norda 005. I think in terms of a new shoe company, you’re seeing the maturation happen. The 001 to the 002, to this 005, they’ve all gotten, in my opinion and sort of my foot shape, they’ve all got progressively better. They’ve gotten a little bit tighter with their tolerances. They lock down a little bit better. They really went after it with this shoe, sort of going in that super shoe model, but not having carbon and some of the other standard stuff. So, they took super shoe, plus durability, and tried to put those two together, so it’s not like a one-and-done type of shoe that you just wear for race day. I really like that concept.
Let’s talk about the negatives that I felt. One of those is still the upper. Despite being the best upper of the three Norda trail shoes on offer, it’s still a single piece. The shoe weighs 7.5 ounces. [Actual weight of 8.1 ounces for a U.S. men’s 9.5.] It’s really hard to get enough stuff in there to lock this down and you generally see that across the industry. The lighter you go, the less materials, and the less materials, the less you have to play with all of the things. So, you want something really locked down and stable? It’s probably going to be heavier.
This does ride a nice middle ground. But for me, I’m going to sort of pick where I’m going to be. If I’m spending a big day in overly technical stuff, this is probably not going be the shoe that I’m going to grab. But if I have a race that’s got a combination of fire roads, some roads, some trail that’s maybe not super rocky that I’m spending a whole bunch of time on, this is a great shoe. The midsole performs super well. It feels good. It feels fast. It’s light. It kind of does what you need it to. But if I’m looking for something where my foot’s really going to be moving around a lot and fighting terrain, there’s just a lot of upper looseness that’s not going to provide what I tend to look for.
Another thing is the laces. They constantly came untied on me whether they were wet or dry. Is that a complaint that’s worth bringing up? I don’t know. They bring up laces on the website about how the laces are 4-millimeter versus 5-millimeter to save weight. And I just feel like if I’m putting $325 in a pair of shoes that’s a race shoe, I don’t want to have to double knot them because I might need to adjust them. But I don’t want to stop and have to re-tie them because they’ve come untied on me. So, a minor thing for me, but something I think worth calling out.
The heel cup is a little bit loose. And then I think lastly, on the complaint side is the outsole. And it’s not the traction. This rubber’s really great. It hasn’t really worn down like I thought it would despite it being a compound that’s supposed to be a little more race ready, high sticky, high friction, it performs on that. But the lugs, I just didn’t feel like really bite the way that I would want them to. They’re kind of shallow. They don’t really have a lot of aggressive bite on the bottom. And again, you’re sort of weighing this thing between traction and weight and speed and all these things. So I get it, but I think patterning wise, they just don’t add a lot of grip one way or the other.
But overall, in the race for trail super shoes, I think this is what I would lean towards. I don’t like carbon plates. I feel like they’re just too much. So something like this that has a midsole that is built to last, and that’s sort of the function, like, go out and run lots of races in this shoe, and the feel and the bounce and all that stuff that you had on day one is going to be the same hundreds of miles down the road. I like that approach because it gives you a little more value, gives you more miles per dollar.
And there’s some things to weigh with this, but I think in this current crop of trail super shoes and this current crop of experimentation, the Norda 005 is a really great shoe, and one that you can see that I’ve worn and will continue to wear, even after this. But again, I’m going to be a little bit choosy in when I use this shoe. But if I’ve got a little more manageable day, manageable singletrack, not overly technical or just portions and pieces of technical, this is a shoe that can really fly and sort of stays on my foot well enough to get me to the finish line.
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Call for Comments
So with that, questions, comments, feedback, your thoughts on the trail super shoe revolution, leave those below this video. Thanks for watching, and we’ll catch you next time.
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