HOKA ONE ONE CLIFTON EDGE

£140 Wings of desire or lacking the edge to elevate your running?

Daddy, why are you wearing mummy’s shoes again?” was our son’s view of the unisex Edge, and the wee chap had a point. Those colours took us back to the early Hoka days and only leaving the house at dusk (new colours are now available), but the bigger story is the extended midsole that creates a wing at the rear of the shoe.

With another extended heel tab, the shoe feels like a blend of the latest Clifton 6’s upper and Hoka’s niche TenNine downhill trail running shoe (as well as Mach elements). The aim of the midsole wing is reportedly to create added stability on landing and minimise pronation to produce a smoother running stride. In use, we – a midfoot striker – didn’t gauge any benefits, and our cadence and stride length were both slightly reduced compared to the Rincon 2s our on our test loop, but there could be appeal for pure heel strikers. What it has done for us is minimise that Hoka rocker feel and restrict the forward propulsion, creating a shoe that struggles on higher-paced efforts (even with a 5mm drop). Downhill runs are indeed great, as is the case with all Hokas.

Remarkably, with all that extra midsole and a very comfortable multi-layer mesh upper, the Edge still come in at a lean 250g. Yet a downside of that weight saving is a minimal outsole, which is already showing serious signs of wear and has a habit of collecting stones in the tread. We’re all for innovation, yet we’d be worried that this is the moment that Hoka jumped the shark if it wasn’t for the formidable new Rincons 2s.