Altra - Superior 3.0

My Superiors and Lone Peaks would start to fall apart at 200 miles. The outsole was ok, but the uppers get shredded. I see mixed reviews on Topo. The most durable of theirs I’ve found is the Terraventure 4. It’s low stack and uses traditional EVA instead of their Zipfoam proprietary midsole blend. Zipfoam feels soft but wears strangely as if the foam directly underfoot compacts a lot after a couple hundred miles, but the foam in front of your toes doesn’t compress creating this sort of steep slope directly in front of toes that almost make the shoes feel too small. The EVA in the Terraventures has worn consistently without these symptoms. I just wish they sold that model in a wide. Nothing has matched the width of the Altra Superior 3 and 3.5. Even the latest superiors have been slimmed down and are lower volume.

Altra uses 3 different foot shapes, not all their models use the same shape. https://www.altrarunning.com/en-us/about-us/footshape.html. I started off w/ the Altra Lone Peaks then didn't understand why i didn't like their Superiors as much. Turns out i only like their shoes w/ original footshape (LPs, Timp).

Altra Superior and Lone Peak are even lower stack than the Timp.

I had 3 pairs of superiors shred apart on the upper on both inside and outside just above where it connects to the base of the shoe. Same for 3 pairs of outroads. I've never had a non altra showle do this. They all died at under 250km. I have ~1800 km on a pair of nordas right now, and ~700 and 400 on a couple pairs of Topo mt5s. Ive put over 1000km on each of the last 3 pairs of topo phantoms I have had. I have a pair of timps and they have held up well, and the paradigm 4 was an amazing altra shoe. Altra is absolutely hit and miss and this topic comes up a ton. It isnt and OP thing. Its an altra thing.

Altra Lone Peak and Superior both feel wider to me than Experience

I've also done it in Altra Superiors, the first time I ever wore the v4 shoe was Kearsarge to Piute.

Rock shoe: Outdoor: Evolve Kronos, may be replacing with LaSpo TC pros Indoor: no real preference yet. Boots: 3/4 season General Uninsulated mid boot: Scarpa Zodiac Tech GTX Winter/ice/mixed: Scarpa Mont Blanc Pro GTX Full winter double: Ski Boots -> Scarpa TX Pro Trail shoes: Trail runner: Altra Loan Peak Race/technical runner: Altra Superior, may be replaced with King Peaks. Camp shoe/sandal: Xero Z-Trail. The shoes that get the most use: Scarpa Zodiac and indoor rock shoe. I don’t use approach shoes, the Zodiacs kinda pull double duty with that.

The 4 was incredible. When the 4.5 released, I stocked up on the 4 and wore them for ages. I got 600 miles and 2 course records out of one pair of them. And a couple other pairs survived past the 500 mile mark. The toe caps did start separating on all the pairs I had, but that was easily fixed with shoe goo. The 4.5 was close, but there was something that just didn't feel right about them. And, for whatever reason, I just didn't seem to get along well with any of Altra's .5 releases. For instance, I absolutely loved the Lone Peak 3, but didn't really care for the 3.5. Same with the Superiors. Etc.

I've worn the Altra Superior (Altra's standard fit), Timp (same), Escalante (same) and Lone Peaks (Altra's original fit, which is wider). In my experience the toe box on Topo shoes is about the same width as Altra, but the Topos are a bit more snug in the midfoot than Altra's standard fit shoes, which I like.

Altra still has the superiors, they just suck now.

My bad I misread your comment. Are the King mountains similar to the older superiors? The new superiors are way too tight around the mid foot area. I like everything else about them but they are really uncomfortable because of how tight they made them.