R.A.D Changed the World of Fitness Shoes, Can They Do It …

There’s been something rad happening in the fitness sneakers the past two years. Ben Massey and crew have revolutionized what training footwear can look like with their brand R.A.D, which is an acronym for “Race Against Destruction.” Two years ago, the brand launched the R.A.D One, a cross-training shoe that broke the conventions of modern workout sneakers. It looked cool, like something that people would camp out for (and they did) and it performed great.

The R.A.D shoes were a perfect storm. Massey is a former CrossFit Games athlete who used to work at A Bathing Ape in London, and he designed them with former Nike and Adidas designer Tom Berend, who spent time in Nike’s Innovation Kitchen with Tinker Hatfield. The first athlete they signed was Danielle Brandon, a firebrand with bleach-blonde hair, tattoos, long nails, and a middle-finger-up attitude. And they made the shoes hard to get.

It wasn’t long before people were talking about R.A.D and trying to get a pair. They’d eventually make more shoes and you’d see them on the feet of people at CrossFit affiliates across the world. R.A.D also went on to make a running shoe. But many were wondering when the next version of their flagship training shoe would come out.

There’s no more guessing. The R.A.D One v2 releases on Jan. 23. It’s similar to the v1 in some regards and totally different at the same time. The midsole is still made out of Swellfoam cushioning, but there’s a wave-like wrap around the upper to better help athletes with rope climbs. The upper is made from a premium Japanese microfiber. There’s also an anatomical sock liner.

Massey and his design team worked through several iterations to land on the v2, they knew they had to get it right. And, from the looks of it, they did.

I had the chance to talk to Massey before the launch of the R.A.D One v2, and he talked about what’s to come with the new shoe, what went into it, and where RAD had to improve upon the v1.

Tell me about the new shoe.
Yeah, so, it’s still got that herringbone performance tread, but really, the main thing we wanted to improve on or where we see the opportunities, when we first launched, we needed to create a shoe that had an aesthetic that was wearable every day, that lifestyle vibe whilst having the performance.

And I think now we’re in this position where we can start to add some more interest to that category. So, we’ve intentionally made this one look more performance, drafting off of that basketball heritage that Tom has. And then, we can bring in a lifestyle training shoe as well.

Obviously, it’ll still always be rooted in performance, but it just gives us a bit of width to play around with in training. So, yes, it’s exciting. I think, from a construction perspective, performance perspective, breathability, durability, all those things have been massively improved. I think the way in which we’ve made it, we have a lot more freedom when it comes to blocking, materialization, so there’s a whole evolution there that I think will enable us to do more with the silhouette that everyone really loves, which is cool.

The first noticeable difference is the wave on the side.
Yeah. Ride the wave.

What was the intention behind that?
What we are aiming to do here is, this construction was, I suppose, again, this was like Tom drafting off of basketball. He was like, one of the things we did when he was at Adidas, he wrapped Boost in a TPU cage to make it more stable. So, what that did here was, we had a higher resiliency foam through the shoe, but then, we could wrap it in TPU to give it that stability. The problem with TPU is, whilst it is lightweight, does add stability, it’s not as durable as rubber. And so, ropes just shred it. And, when you’re really good at rope climbing, it gets shredded super quick. 

The best option for climbs is going to be rubber. So, we wanted to add a rubber wrap all the way up, but we also wanted to be able to cut weight wherever possible so that’s where we have these cut downs here. And that also informed that visual aesthetic. So, it was like, where can we remove rubber and not adversely affect the performance? And then, in those places, can we lean into an aesthetic by doing so? And I think that has given us this really unique silhouette that, I suppose, most informs that performance evolution.

It’s way more angular. You get that sense of motion, so, it’s all talking to that, as well, which is cool. And then, through the forefoot now, we’ve got way more flexibility obviously because there’s nothing encasing this foam anymore.

And then, through the heel, we have these peaks which also talk to the heel clip. So, you almost have this tripod of stability through the heel, yet you still have this exposed foam, so you still have that runability that everyone praised in the v1.

And you said runability. So, is the shoe just as runnable as the first one?Yeah, exactly. The most important thing is it didn’t get worse, right? It’s like a true, I suppose, a CrossFit shoe if it’s going to be durable enough for things like handstand push-ups and rope climbs and stable enough for lifting, you’re always going to sacrifice some of the runability. You just have to. But we wanted to make sure that we still retained that original level. And this was, I think, about improving what I think a lot of people have said is the best training shoe.

You said how well it was received at first. How much pressure did you feel then trying to make a second version of a shoe that was so popular?
Immense pressure, and I felt it. So, funny story, I’m going to start to tease it over the next few weeks, but we had a design of an original v2 and it basically took the v1s tooling and spun a new upper on it. Classic, and we got to the commercialization stage and I was like, “No, we can’t do this. It’s not good enough.” There was that pressure there, and I think Tom felt it even more, because he was like, “I’ve never designed a shoe in the V1 where so many things have gone well.” And, I think, he’d always, throughout his career, I don’t want to say that he inherited an aesthetic, but he was always drafting off of something that was pre-existing. Whereas, this time, he had to not pluck it from thin air, but it was completely new.

So, there’s only two options at this point. It’s better than what was there or not as good. No one’s going to get a new version and go, “Oh yeah, it’s as good as the first one.”

Yeah. I feel like, in the CrossFit space, too, a lot of the brands will settle on a design and then, over the next three years, it will just be the most minor tweak to that design, but it feels like you kind of reinvented the shoe. Was there any thoughts to just mildly tweak the first one or you knew you wanted to do a completely different shoe?
That is one of the things that has always slightly bugged me about the other brands in this space is, I think there’s definitely a commercial reason for every 12 months to bring out a new model, right? Because it gives you the ability to clear out old stuff and to bring a marketing message to this new product and get people excited. Right?

But I think, unless there’s true improvement, you’re in this place where you’re selling something for the sake of it, and I didn’t want to be in that position. I think that was another reason why we dropped the first version of the v2, because the performance issues that we identified in the v1 were still going to be present. And I was like, “This doesn’t feel right. We have to solve the durability piece with the TPU on a rope.” That’s a non-negotiable, because people buy this shoe to climb ropes. If it gets shredded climbing a rope, it’s not doing its job. We have to solve that.

When I first started wearing the shoe, people in the CrossFit space didn’t know how to react to it. At first, they were like, “Why are you wearing bowling shoes?” And then, I think, then, after a while, people caught onto it, and then everyone who made fun of the shoe ended up owning the shoe.
I think that is the nature of design, isn’t it? It’s like, you almost, as a brand, I think, if you want to be that brand that’s a trailblazer and a challenger, you have to put something out there ahead of when people are expecting it to come. Right? We’ve discussed this silhouette a load because we’re very aware that people are going to see this and be like, I hate this shoe. That is just what is going to happen, and that is how it is. People don’t like change. They like the thing they like. And I think, when you are drawing on fashion as an inspiration, fashion is there to move the needle and take people’s tastes on a journey.

We don’t ever want to be this brand that’s looking at other brands and going, “Oh, what are they doing? Well, we need to do that.” It’s like, we want to be this brand that is like, “Hey, we think this is fucking cool. You might think it’s cool now, and if you don’t, you’re probably going to think it’s cool in 12 to 18 months.” And that’s good because, by that point, we’re going to be on the next thing.

How were you able to maintain the hype? Because I feel like there was a lot of hype at first, but I feel like often it’s really hard to maintain that, especially when it’s just the one shoe and just different colorways and maybe people are like, “Hey, how many colorways of this shoe do I need?”
I think, for me, and the way in which we would really look at it is, first and foremost, we want the customer to emotionally engage with the brand. If that happens, then we know that we’re doing something right.

If it just turns into this thing where it’s like, “Oh, this is just an object that I am ‘consuming,'” that’s where that emotional connection has been lost. And I think we’ve done a really good job of continuously evolving our brand messaging, our brand marketing, and our storytelling to ensure that customers are emotionally engaged with everything we’re doing. I think the other part is because we have never been driven by, “Okay, we need to make as much money as quickly as we can,” we’ve been able to really control the number of units that are in the market. We’ve been able to control the quality that goes out. We’ve been able to be really selective in who we partner with, who we distribute through.

We haven’t gone from zero to millions of pairs in one year. We’re being very intentional about buying what we think we can sell. We don’t want to do any discounting, we don’t want to do any of that kind of stuff. It’s about building a brand that we want to be here in 50 years time, and we know that that’s going to take longer.

Have there been any disappointments? I know you had that one lumberjack shoe that you had to recall.
That is such a sad moment because everyone loved that colorway. People wouldn’t give it back. They wouldn’t, would they? We were like, this shoe is going to fall apart. And they’re like, “Well, I like it.” I think that was the first all-gum bottom we did.

There was, not on this shoe, but on the R1, the first round of production we made, the microfiber was heated too high. So, when you adjusted the tongue, you literally pulled the whole tongue off. In some instances, we haven’t got the distribution right. We’ve gone wrong in terms of probably under-ordering too much.

You know? And I think that pissed people off, but you can’t have it all. I’d rather be under-ordered and all the shoes are on people’s feet and being used than have shitloads of stock in a warehouse and be like, “Oh, fuck, how do you get rid of it?”

This is the last thing I want to ask you. Is there anything you can lead on to, anything special coming with the v2?
We’ve got five collaborations coming next year. We’ve got two athlete shoes, obviously a Danielle Brandon shoe. We’ve got one with Proud Mary Coffee, which is going to be super cool. We’ve then got one with a UK sports brand, pretty big one. I won’t tell you who it is yet.

Do you have a Gym Shark shoe coming?
Well, imagine if we had a Gym Shark shoe coming. That would be cool. And then, at the back end of the year, we’ve got another pretty cool shoe coming, which is more within the CrossFit training space.

They’re all in their final phases, so we haven’t signed the contracts yet, but they’re all in their development bits, so, they’re going to be big moments for us. I think people will start to see how we’re not expanding outside of CrossFit, but how we’re starting to be recognized by other brands, which I think is a big moment for us.

If other brands want to work with us, and that is super humbling, and gets us to speak to another customer. I think we love CrossFit and that’s where we’ve built the company, but we see that there’s an opportunity that extends beyond being labeled a CrossFit brand. We want to be the performance footwear company. That’s what we want to be referred to. So, next year and 2026, that’s a big focus is, how do we ensure we get that expansion and achieve that label.