The On Cloudultra Professional. All pictures: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
On’s path sneakers have been divisive to this point, however the On Cloudultra Professional ($260) is lastly pro-approved.
The model has returned to the path working sphere with what some are calling a path tremendous shoe, though I’m not solely offered on that label. The Cloudultra Professional is a really cushioned, excessive efficiency path racing shoe, with a really costly price ticket. Rumors recommend that the Cloudultra Professional was sufficient to carry 2025 Hardrock 100 and 2024 Western States 100 and UTMB winner Katie Schide over to the model from former longtime footwear sponsor, The North Face. Schide opened her 2025 season within the Cloudultra Professional with an instantaneous win at Madeira Island Extremely-Path 115k.
I’ll always remember an expertise again in 2018 once I was lining up earlier than the Monte Rosa Skyrace in Italy when well-known path working photographer Ian Corless took a take a look at my sneakers, and coarsely exclaimed, “mate, you’re going to race Monte Rosa in these?!”
“These” had been a pair of On Cloudventuretheir first path shoe and the one with the very wavy “Cloudtec” midsole. Corless’s doubts apart, I positioned fourth general within the deep 22k discipline, although this good consequence didn’t make me an On loyalist.
The next years would produce extra misses than hits in On’s path choices. The model seemed to be centered on some really cutting-edge highway efficiency sneakers, like their robot-made highway tremendous shoe, the On Cloudboom Strike Lightspraywhich I’ve examined and have been unbelievable. Path footwear appeared to take a again seat to the innovation occurring with highway sneakers, to not point out On’s concentrate on forming partnerships with trend and music influencers. However it appears the quiet interval was intentional and busy behind the scenes.
The Cloudultra Professional pushes up very intently to being, properly, mega-stacked just like the Salomon S/Lab Extremely Gundergo or The North Face Summit Vectiv Professional 3. It’s comparable in ground-feel to the previous quite than the later, regardless of the Salomon shoe having no plate in any respect. The Cloudultra Professional has a claimed stack peak of 39 millimeters within the heel and 33 within the toe for 6-millimeter drop. It has a reasonably rockered form and a midsole composed of two completely different densities of froth sandwiching a fiberglass plate.
All of those qualities would push it into tremendous shoe territory, however the propulsive really feel is noticeably lesser than in sneakers just like the adidas Terrex Agravic Velocity Extremely or the Nike Ultrafly. A U.S. males’s 9 has an precise weight of 9.3 ounces (262 grams). The sub-10-ounce weight belies its general footprint, which feels enormous.
There’s a little bit of brain-body confusion occurring from while you put the shoe on to while you’re working in it. It seems clunky however runs surprisingly nimble — there’s a bizarre disconnect that rapidly disappears. Consolation is without doubt one of the shoe’s key qualities — becoming because it’s designed for very long-distance working — assume UTMB quite than Golden Trails — and even with my broad toes I skilled no areas of trouble.
Store the Males’s On Cloudultra ProfessionalStore the Ladies’s On Cloudultra Professional
On Cloudultra Professional Higher
A lateral view of the On Cloudultra Professional.
From a model with as wild an higher innovation because the aforementioned Lightspray, it’s not stunning that On brings a really distinctive and new strategy to the closely prototyped On Cloudultra Professional.
The shoe’s three most important higher design parts don’t veer removed from what most path sneakers goal to perform — breathability, quick-drying, and assist/enlargement for swollen toes — however the precise design is not like something I’ve seen. On makes use of a brand new technical mesh higher know-how utilizing Leno weave. Like Matryx, which appears to be displaying up on nearly each new (and costly) path shoe, Leno’s weave is a technical mesh materials that’s tremendous sturdy and abrasion resistant.
Wanting on the shoe’s facet profile, the Leno composition has areas of tighter weave from the toe towards the midfoot, then opens up with giant gaps within the weave on the true midfoot. Held as much as the sunshine, you may see immediately by the weave, apart from within the few areas with an TPU overlay. I’ve been testing the sneakers over a very blistering Could, June, and July in Colorado and have appreciated the effectiveness of this materials to dump warmth and water, and snow within the mountains.
The gusseted tongue is sort of all the time completely seated. It suits my broad toes properly, although narrower toes may discover it roomy. I discovered it completely amenable to my foot sort and will see it being maybe somewhat ill-fitting for runners with out the identical broad footprint as me. On’s different highway tremendous shoe, the On Cloudboom Strike (non-LightSpray model), got here with a set of comically lengthy laces; the On Cloudultra Professional’s are of regular size and even single-knotted by no means got here unfastened. They’re made within the serrated model that numerous manufacturers are utilizing now.
A pull tab on the tongue for storing the laces extra generally served as a means for me to easy out the tongue, wiggling my foot round, and letting the whole lot fall into place.
Many runners have points with how manufacturers assemble heel cups, be it the density or the peak and the way it impacts consolation in opposition to the Achilles. That is nearly by no means an issue for me, and I discovered no points within the Cloudultra Professional both.
On Cloudultra Professional Midsole
A medial view of the On Cloudultra Professional.
As fascinating because the higher is on the On Cloudultra Professionalit’s actually the midsole composition that may make or break this shoe, relying in your wants. And that is the place you may, like me, query whether or not this can be a true tremendous shoe.
The three-part midsole consists of Helion “superfoam” — a mushy prime layer and agency backside layer with a Speedboard (TPU plate) between the 2. The yellow plate could be seen while you maintain the shoe up and like another manufacturers, its fork form is printed on the outsole. It’s a fairly discrete plate, working solely the size from the ball of the foot to only earlier than the heel, and is simply about an inch and a half at its widest level.
I used to be extraordinarily doubtful how this shoe would carry out on technical descents with the mixture of its very excessive stack peak and plate, however it’s truly much more profitable than a number of the rivals, contorting and dampening over off-angle terrain.
The plate’s comparatively small measurement and the dampness of the froth produces a strong feeling on touchdown and is a bit nimbler than the stiffer, totally carbon-plated sneakers. However there additionally lies the disadvantage. Propulsion, effectivity, and turnover at pace simply doesn’t really feel as sturdy because the rivals’ sneakers. After all, these sneakers aren’t very comfy over numerous hours. Footwear just like the Agravic Velocity Extremely — though constructed with Western States in thoughts — are so stiff to the purpose of tiring my toes out, and I discover it very tough to descend technical terrain in them. I discovered nothing related in multi-hour runs within the Cloudultra Professional. What you may sacrifice when it comes to pure pace, you achieve in long-term consolation from this extra forgiving midsole.
The froth and plate mixture can solely be described as plush. The attractive underfoot really feel produces a sensational working expertise; a far cry from the slapping-the-ground impact of the aforementioned Cloudventure. On has taken numerous warmth about the way in which it has steadily morphed its Cloudtec design, sharpening and diminishing the design of this On hallmark, main some to query whether or not it was truly a practical characteristic for cushioning or simply an aesthetic alternative to face out. Properly, On has mentioned the Cloudtec on the Cloudultra Professional is a stabilizing drive, as designed into the underside layer of froth.
On advised us that the midsole recipe within the Cloudultra Professional was examined within the lab over an extended prototyping interval with its athletes, and the outcomes produced best-in-class effectivity on uphill and downhill runs. I feel the shoe actually does thread that needle between pretty quick going uphill, and is less complicated to belief on descents than the stiff, clenched experience of the Agravic Velocity Extremely.
On Cloudultra Professional Outsole
The outsole of the On Cloudultra Professional.
The On Cloudultra Professional has On’s proprietary Mission Grip rubber with 3.5-millimeter lugs. Out of the field, the lugs aren’t tremendous aggressive — that is positively not a mud shoe. However they look quick: broad spacing, multidirectional shapes; a white, lugless cutout down the middle, the place the Speedboard sits above. Although I piloted that authentic Cloudventure over some very technical terrain within the Monte Rosa Skyrace, On hasn’t been a very standout downhilling shoe model from my expertise. May this design truly ship on difficult trails?
On dry trails, the Missiongrip is extremely practical. Hardpack dust and hearth roads are the shoe’s candy spot, although on technical trails, the shoe is nimble and grippy sufficient when leaping throughout boulders or different rock options. I felt locked in and assured, particularly on descents the place I’d usually again off a bit in equally priced path tremendous sneakers. On moist trails issues are predictably somewhat extra sketchy — ironic because the shoe is so profitable at draining water do you have to encounter it. For those who’re on slick rocks, moist roots, or thick clay, you’ll need to be somewhat extra cautious. The rubber simply doesn’t have the identical sticky, wet-surface grip you’d get from one thing like a Vibram outsole. Additionally, the lugs don’t shed mud all that properly. As soon as they clog up, it’s sport over till issues dry out.
On designed the outsole utilizing Finite Factor Evaluation (FEA), a computer-based methodology used to foretell how a bodily object or system will react to forces, warmth, vibrations, and different bodily results. On used this device to optimize the form, orientation, and density of the lugs. Based on On, they sussed out the chosen Missiongrip compound and lug model from over 200 completely different choices. The prototyping phases used a small choice of completely different compounds that had been then examined within the discipline. The model says this course of has resulted of their most superior Missiongrip to this point.
On Cloudultra Professional General Impressions
A prime view of the On Cloudultra Professional.
The On Cloudulter for appears like On’s most mature and well-rounded path shoe to this point — an acknowledgment, maybe, that they’ve lastly determined to get severe in regards to the extremely and mountain working world after years of experimental, and sometimes irritating, path designs. It’s not excellent, and whether or not you take into account it a path tremendous shoe in all probability will depend on the way you outline the time period — however it’s clearly constructed for actual racing and long-haul mountain efforts.
What impressed me most is how the completely different elements — higher, midsole, outsole — really feel not simply thought by, however examined in the proper means. The plush, dual-density Helion foam and modest plate ship consolation over time with out the tough stiffness of different plated sneakers. The Leno weave higher is breathable and genuinely revolutionary, not simply in look however in on-foot efficiency. And whereas the Missiongrip outsole nonetheless doesn’t fairly keep on with moist terrain like Vibram, it’s the perfect iteration of On’s path rubber but — and ok for many circumstances outdoors of deep mud.
In the end, the Cloudultra Professional is a shoe that’s higher than the sum of its elements. It’s not the lightest, quickest, or most aggressive path shoe on the market — however for lengthy days within the mountains, particularly in dry or combined terrain, it’s laborious to beat the stability of consolation, safety, and precision. That is the primary time I’ve completed testing an On path shoe and instantly wished to take it out once more the following day. That claims quite a bit.
Store the Males’s On Cloudultra ProfessionalStore the Ladies’s On Cloudultra Professional
Name for Feedback
- Have you ever tried the On Cloudultra Professional? What had been your impressions?
Our Favourite Path Operating Footwear
Study extra about our present favourite path trainers in our Greatest Path Operating Footwear information.
