Norda 002 Can Handle Any Tough Terrain You Throw at It

If you buy a pair of Nordas, prepare yourself be complimented that your shoes are cool…a lot. People comment on my Norda 001s—no exaggeration—at least once a week. The very first time I wore the 002 to hit some local trails with a run club, someone at the post-run brewery said of them, “Those are wild.”

Norda’s shoes aren’t particularly flashy (not counting the many reflective hits on them, which are flashy in a literal way) but neither do they look like other shoes out there. They don’t have a big emblem on the side like most running shoes do, the design doesn’t use a lot of hard angles or obvious tech integrations, and the colors are more muted than bright. Still, there’s something distinct about them—potentially, the lack of showiness?—and even with an outsole that clearly wants to chew on dirt, there’s an element of sneaker-ness at work. To say that they look “wild” is probably the best way to put it.

How do they fit?

The 002’s upper is made of one single woven piece of bio-based Dyneema, a super light, super-durable fiber. Dyneema’s unique characteristics are crucial to Norda’s vision that its shoes last as long as two or even three pairs of typical trail running shoes. Durability, primarily, but not stretchiness or breathability. Still, the 002 was form-fitting and comfortable from my first run in them. Really comfortable, actually, and after many miles in them, the Dyneema only seems to wear in and fit better. If Dyneema is tricky stuff to work with, Norda’s designers aren’t letting on.

Norda recommends runners size up a half size in the 002s, which is what I did, and they fit exactly the way I want my trail running shoes to fit: solid in the heel and through the midfoot with a little breathing room up front for my toes. The 002 may be made for speed in technical terrain and a lot of people talk about it as a race shoe, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s narrow or cramped.

Unlike the 001, the 002 has a padded collar, which adds some welcome cushion around the ankle and some very welcome heel hold on the trail. The tongue is gusseted so it doesn’t move around, and the laces (which also have some Dyneema in them) are wide and slip-resistant. Loose laces aren’t something you want to worry about when you’re break necking down rooty switchbacks through the woods.

How do they wear?

I live in a town where, in the summer, mountain biking is a language it seems everybody speaks. There are more mountain bikers than trail runners, that’s for sure, and increasingly there are more mountain biking trails. There’s a great network of them a few minutes from my place, and that’s where I recently did a big run in the Norda 002s.

These trails, like many of the trails in the Green Mountains, consist of packed dirt with lots of roots and plenty of rocks. There are bridges over streams, plank walkways over soggy spots, and, inevitably, some mud. I picked my way through all this up, up, up, roughly 1,000 feet or so, until I got to the top where a seam of rock broke through the earth in a brief ridge. It’s technical running that can be fast for a moment and then slow and picky soon after, often changing on short notice.