speedland invests in runners, not marketing. kevin fallon and david dombrow spent 25 years designing shoes at nike, puma, and under armour before deciding to make the shoe they actually wanted to run in, and they built the company around cutting out what kevin calls the telephone game: athlete feedback getting watered down by middle management and agents before it ever reaches the person who can change the shoe. at speedland, someone runs in a prototype, tells kevin what's wrong, and it changes.
that shows up in the details. boa fit paired with an upper velcro strap for multidirectional lockdown. michelin outsoles that hold on wet rock and loose dirt. a removable carbitex plate you can twist out on easy days. they've since built the RX:PNW, a road shoe made specifically to carry trail athletes through road training blocks, on what early feedback suggests is their best foam yet. shoes named for the terrain they were built on, the GL:SVT for colorado's san juans, the GS:TMT for tiger mountain with ben gibbard, the GL:PDX for their own forest park.
they're also honest when something doesn't land. the cuttable lugs were a good idea borrowed from mountain bike tires that most customers never touched, and they'll tell you so. in a category getting louder and more expensive by the season, that kind of restraint is refreshing. two people with two decades of experience together, building it the hard way because it's the right way.