New Balance Balos – Have New Balance Got The Perfect Balance With This New Shoe?

It feels like New Balance threw every shoe they make into a blender and pulled out the Fresh Foam X Balos. But is that a good thing?

New Balance’s Balos is the first new Fresh Foam running trainer for a long time, joining a busy lineup of shoes in the brand’s daily trainer Fresh Foam category and their performance Fuelcell line. So why does this shoe exist and why was I so excited by it?

Let’s get the Balos laced up and find out.

Starting Line Stats
Price: $200/£200
Foam: Fresh Foam X including a new PEBA blend
Weight: 260g in Men’s UK size 9
Stack Height: 38.5mm (heel) 32.5mm (toe)
Drop: 6mm

Why does the New Balance Balos exist?

The New Balance Fresh Foam X Balos is the latest offering from New Balance and it celebrates 10 years of their Fresh Foam. It sits in a busy line up of the brand’s daily trainer and long run line up of Fresh Foam shoes (like the More, 880, 1080), and their Fuelcell line of performance and racing shoes (Rebel, SC Trainer, SC Elite).

The Balos is conceived as a non-plated ‘super trainer,’ meaning it sits right between the Fresh Foam and the Fuelcell lines. 

The New Balance Balos has a new version of their Fresh Foam, blending in supercritical PEBA foam (that’s the performance foam you see in supershoes) to the existing squishy feeling underfoot. That lighter-weight foam is paired with a very aggressive rocker to give it a racing feel compared to the other Fresh Foam shoes like the 1080 and More. 

This all makes the Balos a bridge between the high end Fuelcell line up and the daily trainer Fresh Foam shoes. The brand stresses the “top of the line” and it literally is that: top of the line up of Fresh Foam shoes, blending some of the tech and materials you would find in their high end shoes. 

So What’s It Like?

The New Balance Balos is aimed at being a super trainer for everyone regardless of pace. So even though it has a high stack height, New Balance have put in place a lot of the features you would see in a support shoe to counteract the high stack height and soft foam, so higher side walls to prevent your foot from tilting in either direction, a wider footprint, and different materials used in the outer to create more structure.

Adding PEBA into the Fresh Foam makes it less squishy, so it has a more responsive feel making it work well as an all-rounder for everything from easy runs to long runs, and even marathon-paced runs for some runners, though we probably wouldn’t wear these in a race – they feel like a training shoe which we’d wear and then put on the SC Trainer or SS Elite on race day.

One consideration is the outsole. New Balance have opted for exposed foam in parts of the outsole, which slims down weight as well as helping with stability, however the exposed foam wears away very quickly, so could lead to durability issues. It was a noticeable issue on the smaller exposed elements that had it in the 1080 v13, so I would expect the outer wear to be an issue when the shoe gets up to 200km of running. 

What makes it different from the 1080? 

The 1080 is the natural comparison within the New Balance range, and with the Balos having an injection of PEBA foam, twinned with one of the most aggressive rockers I’ve seen in a (super) daily trainer, it feels like someone has gone under the hood of a 1080 and given the engine a upgrade – which is a good thing. 

I found the 1080 v13 a difficult shoe to run in as a daily trainer because it’s so soft. It was OK for very easy runs, and is incredibly comfortable, but lacked some responsiveness and could be mushy at times. The Balos gives more stability and responsiveness without losing the comfort.  

So as a non-plated ‘super trainer’, how does it stack (pardon the pun) up against the competition? 

What is it lining up against?

At $200/£200 it is NOT a cheap shoe. It is $40/£40 more than the Fresh Foam 1080 v13 and $60/£60 more than the Fresh Foam More v5 and the Fuelcell Rebel v4, and only $30/£30 less than the Fuelcell SuperComp Trainer v3.

Being billed as a non-plated super trainer it immediately comes into the comparisons with the ASICS Superblast 2 (£210/$210), the Brooks Hyperion Max 2 (£160/$160) and the On Cloudmonster Hyper (£210/$210). The shoe out of that line up that feels roughly the same in terms of performance is the Superblast. I recently ran the Olympic Marathon Pour Tous (you can see the video here!) in the Superblast 2 and while they performed well at higher paces, they felt a bit sluggish as I got to the final miles of race and was more fatigued. Perhaps the Balos would be able to combine the comfort and stability you’d want when tired, though overall the Balos is a shoe that we wouldn’t necessarily choose to race in. 

Does The Balos Get The Right Balance?

When this shoe was first leaked many months ago, the rumour was that it was a Fresh Foam shoe with a plate, but that’s not what we’ve got, and so I was a bit disappointed initially (imagine a 1080 with a carbon plate!).

Instead it’s a mega-mix of all the best bits of New Balance as it combines the lightweight and responsive tech of the PEBA foam, and pairs it with the super-cushioned Fresh Foam midsole, and in doing so they have created a great shoe that’s comfortable, smooth and responsive, making it a lot of fun to run in – in fact, if I was packing only one pair of shoes to take on holiday for running and sightseeing, it would be these.

But the balance in the Balos doesn’t feel quite right overall, and at its high price point I expect the Balos will be a New Balance shoe that will likely struggle to get its voice heard above the noise of the 1080s and More shoes in the Fresh Foam line up, and the speedier Fuelcell line up. Even more so with the next version of the 1080 on the horizon…