Nike Zoomx Streakfly

What’s the story?

The super-lightweight Streakfly is built for all-out speed over the mile, 5km and 10km – filling a gap in Nike’s line-up behind its Vaporfly and Alphafly carbon racers.

But unlike those more marathon-friendly shoes, these don’t have a carbon plate – instead you get minimal mesh uppers with a lower, full-length stack of Zoomx midsole foam and a weight-saving Pebax ‘shank’, there to provide snappy transitions and midfoot support.

Are they any good?

As stripped-back and racy as the Adidas Takumi Sen 8 over the page, these Nikes vanish on the feet the moment you lace them up. The mesh uppers strike a brilliant balance of being structured enough to wrap and support the foot but flexible enough to let you run unrestricted.

Despite packing a fairly high stack of foam, they’re also impossibly lightweight. That all adds up to a road feel that’s nimble, agile and a whole lot of fun. Every time we put these on we wanted to run fast – and the shoes delivered.

But there is something a little unusual about these shoes. The Zoomx foam is incredibly compressive and, without a plate, it almost collapses with each stride. You can feel the road coming up through each soft step, creating a more grounded sensation than other race shoes. That definitely makes these better suited to all-out pace over shorter distances than anything beyond an efficient half marathon.

They’re also considerably cheaper than many race shoes… but we worry about the durability of that midsole foam. We’d recommend saving these for chasing parkrun PBS or interval workouts on the track.

£135 / stuff.tv/streakfly

Key specs

● 182g ● 32mm heel stack, 26mm toe stack ● Pebax shank