Pearl Izumi N1 Trail Shoe Review

Pearl Izumi N1 Trail Shoe Review

At first glance, you can tell the Pearl Izumi N1 Trail neutral race shoe is sure to take your feet great places. It’s sleek form hugs nicely to your foot allowing you to really feel the trail. Though the shoe is light weight, there is enough cushioning that your feet never beat up by the rocks, sticks and other obstacles found in nature. Instead, you can feel what is beneath you to use it to your advantage increasing speed and stability. It also encourages the feeling of being one with the trail.

My top highlights of the Pearl Izumi’ Trail N1 neutral race shoes are: This shoe is best for technical trail running due to the light weight, close fit and great tread. The tread on the bottom is designed to grip whatever the forest throws your way performs nicely on all sorts of terrain. I found it gripped best on gravel, soft packed dirt, loose rock and boulder. As to be expected with a lot of shoes, water decreased the traction and made roots and logs slippery. A word to the wise, if you step in a puddle your feet will get wet! The Pearl Izumi N1’s performed quite well in hard packed snow and ice, gripping well both in uphill motion and downhill.

  1. Close fit. It feels like you are wearing slippers on your feet.
  2. Light weight. These shoes made it easy to run without weighing you down with additional bulk.
  3. Colour. Hahaha, I love the pink!

Another perk of this shoe is that orthotics seem to fit in easily without impacting the performance of the shoe. There was also no extra movement in the shoe due to the orthotics either.

These shoes are perfect for anyone looking for some trail fun! Check out the Pearl Izumi Trail N1.

Shannon Penway
Kintec Ambassador

1 Comment
  • Graham Archer

    May 8, 2014 at 8:58 pm Reply

    The PI Trail N1 is in my rotation of trail shoes and is one of my favorite lower pitch and lower profile shoes to run in. It has a very nice transition from heel to toe and has surprising amount of cushioning for a lower profile shoe.

    Great review Shannon.

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