Nike Ultrafly Trail Review: Nike's First Carbon-Plated Trail Super Shoe

Introduction

Trail running has waited a long time for this one: the Nike Ultrafly is Nike’s first trail running shoe with a carbon fiber plate, and it’s also the first trail shoe from the brand to pair that plate with ZoomX foam. Think of it as the Vaporfly of the trail running world. It’s built to go fast, not to plod through easy runs, park runs, or dog walks. After early runs on light woodland trails, it’s fair to say the shoe lives up to the hype, with a few caveats worth knowing before you spend trail-shoe money on a super shoe.

What Makes the Ultrafly Different

The headline combination is ZoomX foam plus the carbon Flyplate, the same basic recipe that made Nike’s road super shoes famous. The result is a shoe with genuinely exciting bounce, but importantly it’s a balanced bounce. You don’t feel like you’re being propelled over uneven ground the way you might fear on a trail. Instead, you feel planted and stable while still getting that lively, responsive ride.

The other big story is the partnership with Vibram. Nike’s trail shoes have historically had one major drawback: grip. Outsoles that didn’t inspire confidence on wet or loose terrain have let the line down before. The Vibram outsole on the Ultrafly solves that with a much grippier compound and deeper lugs, and the difference is noticeable. You simply feel more secure underfoot, which is exactly what a trail shoe should deliver.

The upper uses the Vaporweave material seen on Nike’s road racing shoes, but it’s thicker here and less breathable, which makes sense for trail use. It’s paired with a thin racing tongue that lies flat against the foot, familiar from the Vaporfly and Alphafly.

Fit and Sizing

The Ultrafly fits true to size for most wearers, but it fits very differently from Nike’s other super shoes. The toe box is much wider than you’d expect, and while it can look oversized out of the box, that extra room is welcome on trails where you don’t want toes jammed against the edge.

The fit is also very locked in, which is generally a good thing on uneven ground. There isn’t a huge amount of give in the Vaporweave upper, though, so there’s a fine line between secure and too tight. Laced too snugly, the shoe caused some heel rubbing on one run. It takes a little tweaking to dial in, but being locked in beats sliding around in a trail shoe.

Spec highlights worth noting:

• 8.5mm heel-to-toe offset
• 249g in the women’s shoe, 300g in the men’s
• Vibram outsole with deep lugs
• ZoomX foam midsole with carbon Flyplate
• Launch colorway: white and orange

First Run Impressions

One of the quiet pleasures of this shoe is versatility at the edges of the trail. You can wear it from your door to the trailhead without noticing the concrete. Many trail shoes feel harsh and thin on pavement, but the ZoomX foam and carbon plate provide enough cushioning to handle a short road approach comfortably. You wouldn’t want to log big road miles in it, since the lugged outsole will wear faster, but the door-to-trail experience is genuinely good.

On light woodland trails with uneven ground, rocks, and tree roots, the shoe felt secure and balanced. The grip inspired confidence where earlier Nike trail shoes have felt slippery. Two shorter runs in, the main lesson is about lacing: get the tension right and the fit disappears; get it too tight and the heel lets you know about it.

Should You Buy the Nike Ultrafly?

This is an easy question to answer in one direction. If you only do the occasional trail run or walk the dog on trails, this is not your shoe, and at $250 (around £234, with UK pricing not officially confirmed), it would be a lot to spend on casual use. It launched on July 27th and, like many Nike super shoes, it’s likely to be hard to get hold of at first, with availability hopefully improving through the following weeks.

Where the Ultrafly makes real sense is racing on the trails, or long, ambitious trail days where you want the speed of a super shoe with the grip to match. If the Vibram outsole proves durable, it may even earn a place in training rotations, though the longevity of a carbon-plated trail shoe over many miles is still an open question.

The hope, beyond this shoe, is that the Vibram outsole gets rolled out across Nike’s entire trail running line, because it transforms confidence on the trail.

Conclusion

The Nike Ultrafly is a landmark shoe: ZoomX foam, a carbon Flyplate, and finally an outsole that grips like a proper trail shoe. It’s expensive, it’s aimed squarely at fast running rather than easy miles, and the fit takes some dialling in. But for trail racers and runners who want real speed off-road, it has genuinely lived up to expectations so far.