The newest addition to this program is the Supra Ellington Vulc. While Erik Ellington’s regular pro-model is a athletic inspired cupsole, its designer took a rather blunt approach with this model: simply cutting off the cupsole and adding the Supra Cubas vulc sole. A rather interesting approach, and quite fitting for Ellington’s approach to skateboarding itself. But when it comes down to it, how does this modular concept actually skate? Lets find out.

Sizing

The Supra Ellington Vulc fits true to size, but a bit wider than most shoes. It’s best to try them on at your local skateshop first.

Durability

The Ellington Vulc follows suit with modern design-standards and features a one-piece toecap, with the thicker vulc sole offering some extra protection from griptape. Thanks to this design, most of the flick-abrasion didnt rip the usually occuring hole in the toecap but instead happened at the rather thick vulc portion of the outsole. Also, a little plastic layer under the toecap itself offered extra durability. Laces were well protected, no sign of wearing out here. However, with the mid-top design, the upper laces took some abuse and the shoelaces fraying was a bit more noticeable. If you laced them all the way to the top, theres a higher chance that the laces will rip there. The sole itself held up surprisingly good, especially since it was really soft (we expected a mid-top to be much stiffer) and grippy. Previous Supra model’s vulc soles go bald much faster, but their grippiness lasted til the end. One thing that might lead to some problems later on was that the mesh inside the heel area started to rip, which could lead to some pressure sores later on. Overall, durability was better than expected for such a rather soft vulc shoe.

Cushioning

The Supra Ellington Vulc features a rather simple sole construction, without any major cushioning technology. It protects you from weak impacts, but jumping down 15 stairs clearly wasnt the main intention of this shoe. The Suprafoam footbed kept its shape and did its job fine, but still, major impacts will be felt when skating this shoe (you might wanna check out the cupsole model for those giant stairs).

Shape

The Ellington features a classic shape, maybe a little bit wider than some shoes on the market. The shape of the toe-area makes controlling flip-tricks easy, even though it might take some flips to getting used to flicking with the sole instead of the actual toebox. But after a few flips you wont notice it anymore.

Boardfeel and grip

Boardfeel and grip, these are clearly the prime features of the Ellington Vulc. The flex of this shoe is much softer than expected for a midtop-model. This, in combination with the really grippy sole makes sure that the shoe molds perfectly to the shape of your board. The grip didnt take any break-in time and stayed pretty consistently grippy all throughout our testing time of 10h.

Comfort and stability

As already mentioned, the Supra Ellington Vulc features a rather soft construction. Maybe even a little too soft for a mid-top. Towards the end of our 10h test, the shoe didn’t lose its shape but started to get a bit too soft. This might be a problem if you have really slim feet. It seems that the upper, whose original design was to be supported by a cupsole, lacks a little support when comined with the super-soft Cuba vulc sole construction. This might be annoying, especially when jumping down bigger stuff. Stability also suffers a little due to this super soft design. The strangest part is that sometimes it kind of feels like your heel slips, even though it doesnt. With that said, that may be due to not lacing the shoe all the way to the top. It seems exactly like what is promised: simply combining 2 shoes into one without changing or adapting anything. We would have suggested to improve stability of the upper.

Summary

The Supra Ellington Vulc is a soft mid-top vulc shoe; strengths when it comes to boardfeel and grip, but could use a bit more stability. We suggest this shoe for low-impact skating, especially if you have a little wider feet.

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Supra has always tried to balance their shoe collection with technical and basic models to cater all kinds of skater preferences. The Avex is influenced by the technical side, with a technical design and modern features. This is an exciting step and more than enough reason for us to test the Avex with all that we got.

Sizing

The Supra avex fits true to size.

Durability

The two-piece design has both advantages and disadvantages when it comes down to durability. The absence of material overlapping along the front half featuring durable suede is highly durable. The second part consists of mesh and reduces weight while also increases durability. Its placement in the mid-foot area, however, is some kind of a weak spot. Depending on your method of flipping and ollieing, this section might be prone to ripping, as such happened in one of our sample models. The shaft frayed rather easily, too. The sole on the other hand showed no weaknesses, after our 10h test not a single bald spot could be found. Overall, given the benefits and drawbacks of the design, durability can be described as average.

Cushioning

No matter what, cupsoles are still supreme to vulc when it comes down to cushioning. The Supra Avex featuring EVA foam all over its sole is another prime example for that, cushioning was good. The difference in thickness between heel and toes ensures solid cushioning in the heel area whilst maintaining great boardfeel in the toe area.

Shape

Despite the cushioning, the silhouette of the Avex is rather slim. It fits tightly and ends in a pointy toe. This shape ensures good control and flipping tricks is as easy as can be.

Boardfeel and grip

One advantage of this model is the boardfeel. The slim insole combined with a thin sole in the toe area ensures direct contact between foot and board. Even though the heel is significantly thicker, boardfeel is quite balanced and even cushioning in the thin areas is still pretty good. Although the sole gets flexible with wear, the grip is average. There is room for improvement in this field, especially during the first session.

Comfort and stability

The padded heel leads to a solid heel-lock without restricting movement, thanks to its rather low cut. The inside of the shoe is pretty much seamless, reducing the chance of rubbing or pressure marks. The usually underappreciated area of ventilation is a big plus here too; especially because of the mesh sidewalls and tongue, heat and humidity get transported well. Another important feature is weight reduction. The model is light thanks to the tech materials used in the Avex. Stability can be described as average. During the 10h of testing the shoe didn’t lose shape, but a did lose its stability.

Summary

The Avex is a well designed and important addition to the Supra skate shoe collection. Thanks to its technical elements, boardfeel and comfort are its notable strengths. Slight weaknesses can be found when it comes down to durability and grip.

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Then again this shouldn’t come too surprising since they have an amazing lineup of models like the Cuba, Pistol, Stacks, Hammer and Ellington which are quite popular. But still, all those models have been out for some time. Supra realized that and put quite some work into a new team model, the Avex.

The initial plan was to weartest the shoe at the new Les Corts Skatepark but we had the amazing luck to catch one of the few days with rain. After some phone calls, a quick decision was made: the weartest would happen at the Nevermind, an infamous skateboard bar with cheap beer and a concrete pool in it. It was surreal seeing a large group of people holding their boards walk through Barcelona, all wearing the same shoe.  Arriving at the bar, most people chose to test the grippiness of the shoe by spilling beer on it and doing weird dance moves, whilst Oscar Candon, Arthur Derrien and others ripped the tiny and really tough to skate pool. The shoes performed stellar, hardly anybody fell down and everybody loved the look of it. Also, it was quite obvious that even though they are a rather tech inspired model, they are skateable right out of the box.

Since we stayed a little longer, we straight up tested the shoe on the streets, and it performed quite good as expected. Stay tuned for the full weartested review coming early in 2015!

Text and photos: Stefan Lind (http://layingbreadcrumbs.com/)

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Lakai

As always, the design team led by Scott Johnston has come up with great ideas and designs for 2014 such as a new Marc Johnson shoe. The model is very simple which is exactly what Marc Johnson seems to like about footwear. In addition with the Madrid comes a rather technical model that features Lakai’s XLK cupsole. The lateral and heel area is made out of air-permeable material and has a welded flare.

Adidas

Adidas, like every year, presented very appealing and stylish new colorways of known models such as the just-released Silas SLR and the very popular Busenitz vulc. One of adidas Skateboarding’s highlights at the tradeshow proved to be the ZX vulc. The model is inspired by the ZX running shoe series from the 80s and has now been adapted and reformed to skateboarding needs. In addition to the shoe models, the adidas booth offered a wide range of  clothing to be released throughout the year such as jackets, T-shirts and shirts.

Supra

Supra showcased established models such as the Ellington in, for Supra’s standards, rather modest colors. A focus next year is on the Terry Kennedy Pro model, the Stacks and Stacks vulc. We have already looked at the Stacks vulc in more detail and you’ll be able to read the result soon on weartested.

Dekline

Dekline is known for their plain and simple designs. Up until now, they were almost exclusively defined by vulcanized soles and narrow, shallow cuts. Now Dekline has  followed the trend towards cupsole models and brings to the table a model that stands out from their usual collection, the Dalton.

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Supra

With probably the longest shelves and a shoe for everybody, Supra’s booth generated a lot of traffic. besides the recent releases of 2012 in updated colorways, they introduced a vulcanised version of the “Stacks”, Terry Kennedy’s pro model. The “Hammer”, that will be released in the following weeks was shown in new colorways, too and seems to sell quite good.

The new, vulc-soled Stacks.

The Hammer, Jim Greco’s signature style and inspired by a cut-down Skytop 3.

Lakai

With subjectively the most new models on the shelfs, Lakai definitely impressed. A new Guy Mariano, the first Vincent Alvarez, a Rick Howard boot in smooth brown and anthracite suede as well as the Quite Life capsule collection, there was something for everybody.

The newest Guy Mariano model that successfully combines a clean toebox and sophisticated lines with vintage running elements in the heel area.

The Vincent Alvarez signature style, well deserved and somehow brings back Lakai Manchester memories.

The Rick Howard/Fourstar collab boot was very well received according to the Lakai rep.

Lakai overview

adidas

Mark Gonzales is celebrating 15 years with adidas in 2013 and receives an expanded capsule collection including two new signature styles. Besides that, the Seeley is getting a color treatment by the adidas pros and the pro models of Dennis Busenitz, Silas Baxter Neal and Lucas Puig were presented in great new colorways for fall 2013. Adidas’ apparel offerings get broader and better with every season as well, especially many pieces of the Silas Baxter Neal range stood out.

Three columns, three team riders. Adidas presents great colorways every season, including fall 13.

The Mark Gonzales collection, at least parts of it.

The Adi Ease by Nestor Judkins, his third (?) colorway of the model and always a favorite one.

Other highlights

Praxis footwear had a tiny but stacked booth including an all rubber shoe, definitely an eye-catcher.

For more behind the scenes pictures, the Nike SB 10 years exhibition opening as well as pictures of the “House of VANS” party, have a look at our Facebook page or follow us on Instagram (@weartested).

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