Mount to Coast’s R1 is Further Proof That Sometimes, Simplicity is Best

When it comes to certain culinary experiences — whether that’s a cooked meal, or the production of beer or wine — experts will frequently tell you that the simplest dishes or beverages are the most difficult to pull off correctly. There’s nowhere to hide. There’s simply those few ingredients and the skill of whomever is preparing them. Any one of those few ingredients being off throws everything into chaos. As can the wrong technique or temperature in putting them altogether.

That’s pretty much where we stand with modern day running shoes. Nearly everything is just so damned complicated between hypercritical foams and carbon plates and secondary cushioning systems that it boggles the mind. And those ingredients can, well, cover for one another pretty well. You might have a shoe that is really stiff in the forefoot due to the carbon plate or midsole thickness, but the roll geometry might let you get away with it. Whether or not all of those component parts are good for us while running is another story altogether.

And then there are some shoes that stick to a simpler script. Those that might rely on those simpler ingredients: midsole foam for cushioning, a rubber outsole for traction and protecting that midsole from the elements, an insole to give some texture underfoot, and an upper to strap your foot to them. Shoes where the manufacturer can’t hide; it’s either going to be really right, or really wrong.

That’s essentially where Mount to Coast comes in with their current line-up of shoes. As we said in our review of their C1 super trainer, it’s a brand that first got its focus on the needs of ultramarathoners. And ultramarathoners need good, repetitive cushioning that can stack up for miles and miles on end in a lightweight package. In other words: less stuff, good foam.

This is the original result of those efforts: the R1. Mount to Coast uses the tagline “durability that ultrarunners trust” when describing the shoe. I think that might be painting them too far into a niche. But more on that in a few minutes.

The Tech Stuff

During the course of developing its first round of footwear, Mount to Coast stayed laser focused on a simple question: what do ultrarunners need from their shoes? It was that single question, and the way that it answered it, that laid the foundation for the R1. It eventually answered with three guiding elements.

• Ultrarunners frequently suffered from midsole degradation, forcing athletes to need multiple pairs of shoes during events.
• Upper fit needed to support foot swelling during the race, as otherwise athletes would be forced to select larger sizes or cutting the shoe upper, creating the potential for injury.
• Outsoles would last a few weeks, seeing significant wear long before the midsole had given out.

The brand set to work on new developments in each area in order to be able to come up with the shoe that eventually became the R1. Partnering with BASF, Mount to Coast came up with their ZeroSag midsole technology. According to Mount to Coast, it’s derived from technology in car racing suspensions and provides “consistent cushioning and support over hundreds of miles of running.” Perhaps more critically for runners, BASF should sound familiar to people — they’re the same folks that Adidas partnered with nearly 15 years ago to create the Boost midsole cushioning technology, which saw longer durability and more responsiveness than traditional EVA foams.

In addition to ZeroSag, there’s also Mount to Coast’s take on a supercritical foam, called LightCELL. Their recipe for the foam calls for the use of nitrogen injection to provide weight reduction and increase responsiveness. There are a couple of brands that also use this type of formulation, perhaps none more famous than Puma and their NITRO branding.

Like on the C1, the R1 also features Mount to Coast’s proprietary dual-lacing mechanism called TUNEDFIT. There’s two separate lacing systems for the forefoot and the rest of the shoe. The forefoot has a pull-tag system that allows for easier adjustment on the fly. The rest of the shoe uses a traditional lacing system. I personally think this kind of thing has a future in triathlon, if Mount to Coast ever decides they want to enter that arena. The rest of the upper that secures your foot to the shoe features a 40% recycled poly-blended mesh. It also happens to be light, which is part of the overall motif of the shoe.

Lastly, there’s the work on the outsole. It doesn’t look like much. In fact, it just looks like texture that’s been molded into the midsole. Rather, it’s a unique rubber blend that was formulated to be as durable and low-wearing as possible. The prototype version of this shoe held up for British ultrarunner Justin Montague’s assault on the record books at JOGLE in 2024. The multi-stage trail race takes runners from the northern tip of Scotland to the southern edge of England over the course of 854 miles. Montague used a single pair of R1s while shattering the previous total race time by 40 hours.

The R1 features an 8 millimeter heel-toe drop and a published weight of 8.5 ounces. Holding a pair of my size 13s in hand, I would say this shoe scales its weight well, making it still light for those of us with non-sample size feet.

Running in the R1

There’s an old saying that Mizuno used to abide by when I was still slinging shoes on a daily basis: made for the road, not the sales floor. In other words, their shoes may not have been the most comfortable with initial try-on feel, but once you started running in them, you’d fall in love.

That’s pretty much the case with the R1.

This is not a shoe that will wow you when you first put it on. Sure, there’s a couple of nice touches to it; the heel collar, in particular, is a premium piece of work. But it’s not exactly a luxurious experience to step into. You don’t feel, for instance, how the cushioning is really going to work. Nor is your foot wrapped in something soft. It’s utilitarian. It’s the things you need, but nothing you don’t.

But then you start running in it. And that’s where the magic happens.

Between the midsole geometry and the cushioning materials, this shoe just wants to run. Mile after mile after mile, the shoe feels the same: smooth. It hits the Goldilocks zone of being soft without spongy, bouncy without being harsh, and doesn’t dictate to you how you’re going to run. Want to go lower cadence and longer stride length? The R1 can do that. If you’d prefer shorter strides and quicker turnover, that’s easy to handle too. And it feels the same underfoot at mile 10 as it did at mile 1.

I also just adore the TUNEDFIT lacing system. It is rare that I ever want an adjustment to lacing from my mid foot upward while running, but as the miles pile up, I might want a little more forefoot splay. A quick loosen of each tab, a stretch of those laces, and a locking of the tab and we’re back underway. It’s both faster and better equipped to the task at hand.

The same can be said for that outsole. It really doesn’t look like much, but it is tacky in all the right ways. This is the pair of running shoes that I decided to bring with us on our current European trip through Italy, Greece, and Malta. The running circuit on board the ship here is wooden, and on one of the lower decks. There’s occasional ocean spray or general water that winds up on it. The shoe has handled these slippery situations extremely well. It’s also managed treadmills, my normal Pacific Northwest surfaces, and cobblestones too.

Negatives? If I’m being picky, the so-called “agave” colorway does an awfully good job of giving me “bad diaper day” flashbacks to when my child was younger. And it’s not really a negative, per se, but this is a shoe that you will determine the pace of. It’s not giving you additional pace or driving you forward. You’ll have to earn your time in it. But the R1 will be sure to live up to those miles.

It’s a shoe that is greater than the sum of its parts. And at $160 USD, I think a very fair price for a shoe that is this capable.

Mount to Coast R1
Available: Now
Price: $160 USD
Men’s | Women’s

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