The On Cloudultra Pro. All photos: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
On’s trail shoes have been divisive to date, but the On Cloudultra Pro ($260) is finally pro-approved.
The brand has returned to the trail running sphere with what some are calling a trail super shoe, although I’m not entirely sold on that label. The Cloudultra Pro is a very cushioned, high performance trail racing shoe, with a very expensive price tag. Rumors suggest that the Cloudultra Pro was enough to bring 2025 Hardrock 100 and 2024 Western States 100 and UTMB winner Katie Schide over to the brand from former longtime footwear sponsor, The North Face. Schide opened her 2025 season in the Cloudultra Pro with an immediate win at Madeira Island Ultra-Trail 115k.
I’ll never forget an experience back in 2018 when I was lining up before the Monte Rosa Skyrace in Italy when well-known trail running photographer Ian Corless took a look at my shoes, and coarsely exclaimed, “mate, you’re going to race Monte Rosa in those?!”
“Those” were a pair of On Cloudventure, their first trail shoe and the one with the very wavy “Cloudtec” midsole. Corless’s doubts aside, I placed fourth overall in the deep 22k field, though this good result didn’t make me an On loyalist.
The subsequent years would produce more misses than hits in On’s trail offerings. The brand appeared to be focused on some truly cutting-edge road performance shoes, like their robot-made road super shoe, the On Cloudboom Strike Lightspray, which I’ve tested and have been fantastic. Trail footwear seemed to take a back seat to the innovation happening with road shoes, not to mention On’s focus on forming partnerships with fashion and music influencers. But it seems the quiet period was intentional and busy behind the scenes.
The Cloudultra Pro pushes up very closely to being, well, mega-stacked like the Salomon S/Lab Ultra Glide or The North Face Summit Vectiv Pro 3. It is comparable in ground-feel to the former rather than the later, despite the Salomon shoe having no plate at all. The Cloudultra Pro has a claimed stack height of 39 millimeters in the heel and 33 in the toe for 6-millimeter drop. It has a moderately rockered shape and a midsole composed of two different densities of foam sandwiching a fiberglass plate.
All of these qualities would push it into super shoe territory, but the propulsive feel is noticeably lesser than in shoes like the adidas Terrex Agravic Speed Ultra or the Nike Ultrafly. A U.S. men’s 9 has an actual weight of 9.3 ounces (262 grams). The sub-10-ounce weight belies its overall footprint, which feels huge.
There’s a bit of brain-body confusion happening from when you put the shoe on to when you’re running in it. It looks clunky but runs surprisingly nimble — there’s a weird disconnect that quickly disappears. Comfort is one of the shoe’s key qualities — fitting as it’s designed for very long-distance running — think UTMB rather than Golden Trails — and even with my wide feet I experienced no areas of bother.
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On Cloudultra Pro Upper
A lateral view of the On Cloudultra Pro.
From a brand with as wild an upper innovation as the aforementioned Lightspray, it’s not surprising that On brings a very unique and new approach to the heavily prototyped On Cloudultra Pro.
The shoe’s three main upper design elements don’t veer far from what most trail shoes aim to accomplish — breathability, quick-drying, and support/expansion for swollen feet — but the actual design is unlike anything I’ve seen. On uses a new technical mesh upper technology using Leno weave. Like Matryx, which seems to be showing up on almost every new (and expensive) trail shoe, Leno’s weave is a technical mesh material that is super strong and abrasion resistant.
Looking at the shoe’s side profile, the Leno composition has areas of tighter weave from the toe toward the midfoot, then opens up with large gaps in the weave on the true midfoot. Held up to the light, you can see directly through the weave, besides in the few areas with an TPU overlay. I’ve been testing the shoes over a particularly blistering May, June, and July in Colorado and have appreciated the effectiveness of this material to dump heat and water, and snow in the mountains.
The gusseted tongue is almost always perfectly seated. It fits my wide feet well, though narrower feet might find it roomy. I found it perfectly amenable to my foot type and could see it being perhaps a little ill-fitting for runners without the same wide footprint as me. On’s other road super shoe, the On Cloudboom Strike (non-LightSpray version), came with a set of comically long laces; the On Cloudultra Pro’s are of normal length and even single-knotted never came loose. They are made in the serrated style that a lot of brands are using now.
A pull tab on the tongue for storing the laces more commonly served as a way for me to smooth out the tongue, wiggling my foot around, and letting everything fall into place.
Many runners have issues with how brands construct heel cups, be it the density or the height and how it affects comfort against the Achilles. This is almost never a problem for me, and I found no issues in the Cloudultra Pro either.
On Cloudultra Pro Midsole
A medial view of the On Cloudultra Pro.
As interesting as the upper is on the On Cloudultra Pro, it’s really the midsole composition that will make or break this shoe, depending on your needs. And this is where you might, like me, question whether this is a true super shoe.
The three-part midsole is composed of Helion “superfoam” — a soft top layer and firm bottom layer with a Speedboard (TPU plate) between the two. The yellow plate can be seen when you hold the shoe up and like some other brands, its fork shape is outlined on the outsole. It is a pretty discrete plate, running only the length from the ball of the foot to just before the heel, and is only about an inch and a half at its widest point.
I was extremely dubious how this shoe would perform on technical descents with the combination of its very high stack height and plate, but it is actually a lot more successful than some of the competitors, contorting and dampening over off-angle terrain.
The plate’s relatively small size and the dampness of the foam produces a solid feeling on landing and is a bit nimbler than the stiffer, fully carbon-plated shoes. But there also lies the drawback. Propulsion, efficiency, and turnover at speed just doesn’t feel as strong as the competitors’ shoes. Of course, those shoes aren’t very comfortable over a lot of hours. Shoes like the Agravic Speed Ultra — although built with Western States in mind — are so stiff to the point of tiring my feet out, and I find it very difficult to descend technical terrain in them. I found nothing similar in multi-hour runs in the Cloudultra Pro. What you might sacrifice in terms of pure speed, you gain in long-term comfort from this more forgiving midsole.
The foam and plate combination can only be described as plush. The beautiful underfoot feel produces a sensational running experience; a far cry from the slapping-the-ground effect of the aforementioned Cloudventure. On has taken a lot of heat about the way it has steadily morphed its Cloudtec design, sharpening and diminishing the design of this On hallmark, leading some to question whether it was actually a functional feature for cushioning or just an aesthetic choice to stand out. Well, On has said the Cloudtec on the Cloudultra Pro is a stabilizing force, as designed into the bottom layer of foam.
On told us that the midsole recipe in the Cloudultra Pro was tested in the lab over a long prototyping period with its athletes, and the results produced best-in-class efficiency on uphill and downhill runs. I think the shoe really does thread that needle between fairly fast going uphill, and is easier to trust on descents than the stiff, clenched ride of the Agravic Speed Ultra.
On Cloudultra Pro Outsole
The outsole of the On Cloudultra Pro.
The On Cloudultra Pro has On’s proprietary Mission Grip rubber with 3.5-millimeter lugs. Out of the box, the lugs aren’t super aggressive — this is definitely not a mud shoe. But they look fast: wide spacing, multidirectional shapes; a white, lugless cutout down the center, where the Speedboard sits above. Though I piloted that original Cloudventure over some very technical terrain in the Monte Rosa Skyrace, On hasn’t been a particularly standout downhilling shoe brand from my experience. Could this design actually deliver on challenging trails?
On dry trails, the Missiongrip is highly functional. Hardpack dirt and fire roads are the shoe’s sweet spot, though on technical trails, the shoe is nimble and grippy enough when leaping across boulders or other rock features. I felt locked in and confident, especially on descents where I’d normally back off a bit in similarly priced trail super shoes. On wet trails things are predictably a little more sketchy — ironic since the shoe is so successful at draining water should you encounter it. If you’re on slick rocks, wet roots, or thick clay, you’ll want to be a little more cautious. The rubber just doesn’t have the same sticky, wet-surface grip you’d get from something like a Vibram outsole. Also, the lugs don’t shed mud all that well. Once they clog up, it’s game over until things dry out.
On designed the outsole using Finite Element Analysis (FEA), a computer-based method used to predict how a physical object or system will react to forces, heat, vibrations, and other physical effects. On used this tool to optimize the shape, orientation, and density of the lugs. According to On, they sussed out the chosen Missiongrip compound and lug style from over 200 different options. The prototyping phases used a small selection of different compounds that were then tested in the field. The brand says this process has resulted in their most advanced Missiongrip to date.
On Cloudultra Pro Overall Impressions
A top view of the On Cloudultra Pro.
The On Cloudultra Pro feels like On’s most mature and well-rounded trail shoe to date — an acknowledgment, perhaps, that they’ve finally decided to get serious about the ultra and mountain running world after years of experimental, and often frustrating, trail designs. It’s not perfect, and whether you consider it a trail super shoe probably depends on how you define the term — but it’s clearly built for real racing and long-haul mountain efforts.
What impressed me most is how the different components — upper, midsole, outsole — feel not just thought through, but tested in the right way. The plush, dual-density Helion foam and modest plate deliver comfort over time without the harsh stiffness of other plated shoes. The Leno weave upper is breathable and genuinely innovative, not just in appearance but in on-foot performance. And while the Missiongrip outsole still doesn’t quite stick to wet terrain like Vibram, it’s the best iteration of On’s trail rubber yet — and good enough for most conditions outside of deep mud.
Ultimately, the Cloudultra Pro is a shoe that’s greater than the sum of its parts. It’s not the lightest, fastest, or most aggressive trail shoe out there — but for long days in the mountains, especially in dry or mixed terrain, it’s hard to beat the balance of comfort, protection, and precision. This is the first time I’ve finished testing an On trail shoe and immediately wanted to take it out again the next day. That says a lot.
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Call for Comments
- Have you tried the On Cloudultra Pro? What were your impressions?
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