La Sportiva - Helios III

La Sportiva shoes with Frixion Blue compound. (Karacal, Lycan II or Helios 3 for example)

Is your friend a doctor? Anecdotally, I’ve run barefoot since reading Born To Run. I wear trail running sandals for normal runs, altras for muddy or cold runs, and 4mm drop la sportivas for steep technical stuff (mostly because i trust the grip more than the altras). Ive never had a problem with anything 0 drop and honestly prefer those shoes over other pairs of shoes i have to wear day to day

I just finished a two week hiking trip in Madeira and am pleased to say my la sportiva helios trailrunners still keep up - I also used them in Albania. Lots of scrambling, going through muddy paths, rocky terrain, I thought they would finally crack or split or... but nothing!

I like La Sportiva Helios as a crossover trail/road shoe. It’s the shoe I travel with.

I am partial to La Sportiva. Prodigio is great like someone else mentioned but I think their Helios is great for this (maybe even better on the road part) too! I feel like the Helios may be lighter but I haven’t checked the numbers - just feel that way. I switched to La Sportiva from Salomon a few years ago.

It is impossible for me to choose the best shoe because my choices would be different for different terrain and distance. Perhaps if I could pick a single favorite shoe of all times it would be **La Sportiva Helios** - between different versions I owned 12 or 13 pairs. I liked it because it felt like a continuation of my feet and I could really push it hard on super technical terrain in a broad range of terrains. However It didn't work well on either very rocky terrain or distances above 50k. If I look at my current set of shoes I gravitate to 3 shoes - each of them excels in different categories of terrain and distance - **NNormal Kjerag, La Sportiva Prodigio, and Salomon S/lab Genesis**. I've just ordered La Sportiva Prodigio Pro and based on reviews I think it has a good chance to become one of my top 3 shoes, but we'll see.