Choosing the right trail running shoes is not an easy task. Go with hard lugs, you get strong grip on muddy surface yet you lose a bit of control on hard wet surfaces. Go with soft lugs, you sacrifice a little bit of traction but get a better grip on hard wet surfaces. Go with cushioning and you lose a little bit of ground feel. On Cloud Vista is a compromise in between giving you a racing flat that keeps its traction on both road and trail surfaces.
On Cloud Vista
When it comes to shoes, I’ve been high with the On Running Brand since 2012, especially for road running shoes. I’ve seen how the brand evolve from a one-size fits all type of model to catering to different needs for running and even casual shoes. For trail running shoes, however, I still didn’t get enough comfort level with the brand to be my go-to trail running shoes, until the On Cloud Vista came along.
I really didn’t have high expectations with the On Cloud Vista but It did catch me by surprise that despite being more of a road to trail shoes, it had excellent grip. It was love at first dirt as I tried it out on a rainy day trail at Mount 360. In terms of profile, Mount 360 is a straight ascent of 2.5 meters to the summit covering about 700 meters of elevation gain. The trail surface is more of dirt grounds but the challenge is that the steepness can make you lose your balance on the descent especially on wet surface. While I was huffing and puffing my way through the climb, my On Cloud Vista had a good grip on the wet trail surfaces even on the more technical parts approaching the summit. Of course, the real test was on the descent so I just went on the descent on my normal pace and was surprise even on the slippery and steep descent, I was comfortable with the traction and did not slip. Rainy day test – passed.
My next climb was on the same Mountain as it has been one of my favorite mountains with a really scenic summit and a challenging climb. This time it was a bright and sunny day. That’s the beauty of the trail, even on the same mountain, you get a different experience because of the different trail condition. Instead of worrying of the wet slippery trail, you get to try out dry and loose surface that also becomes a challenge downhill. So far so good. I still have excellent traction on dry trails.
Blackwood was more of a vacation than a hike as I took my team to for a Team-Building session at Blackwood Nature Homes in Tanay. Blackwood is my go-to place in Tanay and this is my third visit and this time we stayed at the Dome. The place has its own waterfalls and mini trail. It’s a short route but going to the falls you get to have an uneven stone path with moss that can be slippery when wet. I think this is the advantage of the Cloud Vista as it still have good traction over stoney surface.
Up Next was a feel good run in Camp John Hay. Yellow Trails in Camp John Hay is among the best feel-good trails with long runnable trail surfaces with a bit challenge on the incline. This is where you get to feel the advantage of having a lightweight feel of the Cloud Vista, which is less than 10 grams. It’s a racing flat with traction though of course, it’s drawback would be it’s not as cushioned as other shoes. You gotta take in the added speed with the minimal cushioning.
It’s another feel good trail at Panoypoy, Bataan featuring Mariveles Bataan’s view of the five fingers, the wide trail field used in Arisaka and the crystal clear ocean at the bottom of the trail. It was a thrill running downhills with the Cloud vista.
Running on Clouds
Overall, I’m happy with the On Cloud Vista and would be my go to shoes on short and speedy runs and has flexibility on road runs. However, for longer runs, I’d still go with the On Cloudventure peak due to the added cushioning, which is just a personal preference for me. I’ve been running mostly with On since the pandemic with CloudX and Cloudmonster on the road. I’m glad that they too have options now for the trail and the Cloudvista is the perfect racing shoes as we resume racing season in the new normal.