Introduction

Most people have never heard of Scott as a trail running brand because Scott is relatively unknown in Australia. However, they produce some of the best mountain and trail gear you can get your feet on and their Race Concept (RC) line in the black and yellow colourway looks fierce and fast. Their trail shoes are split into the Supertrac line and Kinablu line. The Supertrac line of shoes is for skyrunning and mountains, with deeper lugs, protective features and a precision fit for use on steep, rocky and mountainous terrain. The Kinablu line is for trail running, a lighter more breathable build with minimal lugs, designed more specifically for forward propulsion on less steep and smoother trails. Scott produce a RC version of the Supertrac and Kinablu. The RC shoes are similar to what Salomon do with their S/Lab line. The RC line is instantly recognisable because of its black and fluro yellow colourway.

I am reviewing the Scott Supertrac RC 2 which is Scott’s top of the range mountain racing shoe. It also comes in the non-RC version, but it is an almost completely different shoe with much more cushion, protection and weight. I also have tried the Scott Kinablu Ultra RC which is Scott’s premium long distance trail shoe. I ended up passing on the Kinablu Ultra RC because I found the midfoot fit quite loose, and the length of the shoe short.

Fit and upper

I found the fit immediately comfortable. It is almost slipper like in comfort. Shoes of this weight often have a hard heel collar that can reduce comfort, but Scott have used ample padding along the heel collar, which also eliminates any rubbing on the outer heel bone when running off camber. The heel hold and midfoot hold are excellent and the toe box is wide enough for proper toesplay. When I say the toebox is wide, I mean wide for a precision mountain running shoe. If you need a particularly wide toebox, this shoe is not for you. However, it has a wider toe box than the VJ XTRM (which gives me bad rub on my two little toes from the narrow toe box, and I say is on par with the toebox on the Salomon Sense Pro 4 and Salomon S/Lab Ultra 3. There is no lateral movement or heel slide at all. The heel counter sits relatively low and there is no rubbing on my lateral ankle bone (I am short which means I get rubbing on some shoes here including the VJ XTRM on off camber terrain).

The upper is made from ColdBlack which is a tough wearing material. The material survived all kinds of off trail running, through thick bush, and cleans easily. ColdBlack is meant to be cool in the sun, but I can tell you, this is not a cool shoe. I really had hot feel running in the Australian alps across summer. In autumn I noticed the heat less. There is no doubting this shoe performs best in cool conditions, and I would avoid it if your feet run hot. Although the shoe drains water after river crossings such that there is no sloshing in the shoe, the material does retain some water and so remains heavier after taking on water. This is common for mountain shoes where the upper is made from tough wearing material. None of these materials dry quickly (VJ XTRM Kevlar upper performs similarly in wet conditions, takes a while to dry and definitely not going to dry as you are running).

The tongue is thin and comfortable. I had no movement of the tongue on any runs. The laces are flat and quite durable, though they did fluff up a little after serious off trail adventures, though any shoelace would do this after a couple of kilometres of traversing blackberry bushes. I have used Moxie gaiters for off trail and the shoe would be suitable for most gaiter types.