EXCLUSIVE: New Balance Minimus 2012 line

Minimus Trail 2011

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Earlier this year, New Balance (NB) introduced the Minimus shoes. By doing so, it was one of the first mainstream running brands that adopted the barefoot-style philosophy. The Minimus line was developed together with ultra running legend Anton Krupicka. For their first line of minimalistic shoes NB chose a somewhat cautious approach; the shoes feature a 4mm drop (height difference between the heel and toe area of the shoe sole), and there is a bit of suspension in the thin midsole. Last year we were invited by the Benelux department of NB (The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg), to give them some more insight in to what minimalistic running is all about, to prepare them for this unusual shoe line. We got a chance to see and try on the prototypes of the 2011 Minimus line and came away impressed with the thought that clearly went in to them. Though we see it as a big step in the right direction for such an acknowledged brand, we still consider the current Minimus line as transitional shoes, not full-on barefoot-style shoes.

Let’s have a look at the upcoming 2012 Minimus line!

Our contacts at New Balance Benelux were so kind to give us a preview of the new and updated 2012 minimus line, and we were very curious what direction NB would go with these shoes. Luckily they gave us permission to share what we learned here on our website! So we proudly give you this worldwide scoop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sACYqj3uPC4

The video that was featured here was given to us by New Balance Benelux, and we had their permission to put it online. However, we were asked to remove the video and pictures from our website, because according to New Balance USA there are problems with the copyrights. Ofcourse we regret this, but we are happy we were able to give you al a preview of the upcoming lineup. Stay tuned for more news in the near future!

The main features are:

• three models: Trail (MT00), Road (MR00) en Wellness
• all models have a reduced stack height (thinner midsole)
• all models arezero drop (much appreciated!)
• the outsoles of the Trail en Road models have separate pods
• only the pods that most need it have a longer lasting rubber compound
• the soles are made by Vibram
• no insoles
• very thin tongues
• the uppers are essentially a thin layer of mesh with enforcements only at critical areas
• all models are much lighter then previous versions (the Trail weighs ± 4.1 ounce)

Seems to us that these shoes will be worth the wait; if looks don’t deceive they’ll be true barefoot-style shoes!

This website is still fairly new and, for now, mainly in Dutch. English is not our native language, so please excuse us for possible errors. In the future we plan to have more English content. For now, thank you for visiting this website and please feel free to leave a comment!
We would very much appreciate a link to this source if you use this information on your own website or blog.
Thank you New Balance for the scoop!