Brooks Hyperion Elite 4 Introduction
Brooks has become a brand known for their excellent uppers. Their meticulously crafted uppers have the perfect fit while exuding plushness and comfort in spades. Their uppers are so good in fact that they carry the rest of the shoe.
Brooks’ most famous daily trainers, the Ghost, Glycerin and Adrenaline models form the backbone of their business. They all have excellent uppers with mediocre midsoles. By mediocre, I mean firm, flat and dull.
On the racing front, they have neglected their long-distance racers and are not a force to be reckoned with when it comes to super shoes. With racers, you can’t get away with having a great upper but an average midsole. At the starting line of races, the only runners using the Hyperion Elite are Brooks sponsored athletes.
This is my first time testing the Hyperion Elite. Brooks racing shoes have never gotten my heart racing, mainly because of the dated midsole foams they’ve been using in it. Even though they’ve been using the best foams they have, they can’t compete with the foams from other brands which are made from PEBA: a lightweight, high energy returning foam.
Brooks is not a small company and even newcomers to the super shoe category like Decathlon are using PEBA in their racing shoes so there’s no excuse for Brooks.
Recently, there’s been a shift at Brooks though. They launched the Ghost Max last year, a modernised version of their most popular trainer. They also upgraded the Glycerin to a Nitrogen injected EVA midsole and the Ghost 16 and Ghost Max 2 will get the same foam. The Hyperion Elite 4 gets the brand new DNA Flash v2 foam.
The Elite is the long-distance racer in the Hyperion road range. There’s also the Hyperion Max (maximalist speed trainer), the Hyperion (lightweight speed trainer) and the Hyperion GTS (supportive speed trainer).
The Hyperion Elite 4 weighs 7.8 oz (221 g) which is 0.3 oz (11 g) lighter than version 3. It costs $250, the standard price for a carbon plated super shoe from any of the top brands. It also has 4 mm of extra stack height in the heel compared to its predecessor.
Brooks Hyperion Elite 4 First Impressions
My first run was 20 kilometres at my steady pace. It felt comfortable, smooth and firm. I was most impressed with the upper which felt amazing but the ride was very ordinary. I didn’t feel like it was giving me much speed assistance.
The ride was slightly firmer than I expected and the carbon plate was very indistinct. There wasn’t much of a forward-tipping sensation either. It wasn’t urging me to go faster like most super shoes do. With the upper being so lightweight and the midsole being so dense, it felt bottom heavy.
The shoe that it reminded me of most was the Hyperion Max, the training version of the Hyperion Elite. The Elite felt a bit softer because of its DNA Flash v2 midsole, and it felt much stiffer because the Hyperion Max doesn’t have a plate.
Brooks Hyperion Elite 4 Upper
The Hyperion Elite 4’s upper is a masterclass on how to make a racing upper. There isn’t one thing I would change about it- it’s minimal but it’s effective.
The soft open knit material is the most breathable I’ve ever experienced while overall foot lockdown is excellent. I didn’t experience any irritation or hot spots.
The tongue is stitched to one side only which prevents any tongue slide and there’s an additional loop on the tongue for the laces to go through for extra security.
The fit is true to size with an accommodating forefoot and toe box so I recommend this shoe for runners with wide feet. The notched laces which are similar to the Alphafly laces make it look and feel more premium, as do the reflective strips on the lacing section which are extremely rare on a super shoe.
Brooks Hyperion Elite 4 Sole Unit
If you pay $250 for a racing shoe, you expect to feel fast when you use it. The Hyperion Elite 4 just doesn’t feel as fast as the competition. The main reason for this is how flat its ride feels. The flat ride comes from the lack of a forefoot rocker, and a midsole foam which doesn’t return much energy.
A good racing foam needs to compress a considerable amount during footstrikes and then decompress very quickly, a characteristic of PEBA. The DNA Flash v2 (Nitrogen injected EVA) in the Hyperion Elite 4 doesn’t compress enough. That’s why PEBA is used by most brands in their flagship racing shoes.
The Hyperion Elite 4 is best suited to short distances like intervals and short tempo runs due to its firmness. It feels better during faster efforts. For long runs and marathons, it doesn’t feel as efficient as other super shoes.
The longest run I did in the Hyperion Elite 4 was 37 kilometres. 22 kilometres of it was at my steady pace and 15 kilometres was at my marathon pace. The steady-paced section felt comfortable but when I needed to increase my pace, I found it really difficult to. I did a similar type of run in the Alphafly 3 the previous week and the Alpha felt so much more punchy and aggressive.
The most interesting thing about the Hyperion Elite 4 is its carbon plate which is manufactured by Arris. The plate in the shoe is an open-lattice structure (lots of holes in it) which allows the plate to be stiff but lightweight at the same time.
The problem is that the DNA Flash v2 midsole is so firm and dense that you can’t really feel the carbon plate inside the midsole. It feels as if the plate is muted because the foam isn’t very lively.
The one area where the Hyperion Elite 4 beats all the other super shoes is durability. The midsole foam is firmer and less vulnerable to scuffing/chipping so it holds up much better over time. After 85 kilometres, the outsole on my pair looks immaculate. This is a shoe that you can use for a lot of training and racing.
The forefoot rubber section has large holes in it and mimics the carbon plate to save weight. 2 small rubber pads protect the medial and lateral sections of the heel. I used the Hyperion Elite 4 in some light rain and outsole traction was good.
Brooks Hyperion Elite 4 Conclusions
The Hyperion Elite 4 is a $250 racing shoe that feels like a training shoe. It doesn’t have that special pop or explosive energy return that you usually associate with super shoes because of its flat DNA Flash v2 midsole.
For me, it’s on a lower tier than the Alphafly, Vaporfly, Adios Pro, Rocket X, and the new SC Elite.The $120 Atreyu Race Model offers a similar level of speed assistance and ride at less than half the price.
The Hyperion Elite 4 doesn’t have any flaws when it comes to design: it’s extremely comfortable, smooth, light and stable enough but it’s missing something. I don’t feel fast when I wear it. It’s crucial that Brooks switches to a PEBA-based midsole in the next Hyperion Elite version in order to catch up with their competitors.
Following the trend of most Brooks running shoes, the Hyperion Elite 4 has a stellar upper but a very average midsole. This flawless upper deserves better. I won’t be racing in the Hyperion Elite 4 because it won’t give me an advantage when it counts.
