Ziano di Fiemme (TN, Italy) - September 2008 - La Sportiva® is proud to announce that the testers and editors of Runner’s World magazine, the worldwide authority on running information, have honored the La Sportiva Crosslite with the prestigious 2008 Best Buy Award.

The Best Buy award acknowledges a shoe that offers the best fit and function for its price.  According to Runner’s World, testers who ran in the Crosslite said they enjoyed the lightweight feel and sturdy outsole of the La Sportiva Crosslite.  The La Sportiva Crosslite was recommended for runners who like to feel the trail underfoot and want a minimal shoe with great traction.

The Crosslite is the second La Sportiva shoe in two years to win one of Runner’s World magazine’s reviews. In 2007, the La Sportiva Fireblade won the Runner’s World Best Debut award.

The Crosslite offers runners a unique blend of lightweight responsiveness, cushioning, and an aggressive outsole. The core technology that makes the Crosslite unique is La Sportiva’s proprietary Impact Brake System. This technology was developed in conjunction with Vibram® and uses the lugs on the outsole as additional cushioning. By precisely angling the lugs, La Sportiva was able to add 20-percent more cushioning to the Crosslite without adding any bulk or weight to the midsole of the shoe.

Testing at the Runner’s World Shoe Lab is coordinated by Sport Biomechanics, Inc., and supervised by the Department of Sports Medicine at Michigan State University. Trail shoes are tested for cushioning (how soft/firm the midsole is), flexibility (how much energy it takes to flex the shoe at toe-off), and responsiveness (how smoothly a shoe moves from heel-strike to toe-off).

Testers, who must log a minimum of 25 miles per week, run in the shoes for about a month before submitting their evaluations. Testersnote their total mileage run in each shoe and rate it for qualities including weight, traction, cushioning, support, lacing system and upper material comfort, among other categories.

Runner’s World is the only magazine in the world to independently test running shoes in this way, in order to give its editors the most objective means necessary to determine which shoes are most deserving of award status. Because Runner’s World only tests and reviews the best products available, shoes that have been tested may use the “Tested by the Runner’s World Shoe Lab” label.

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