HOKA Challenger ATR 6 GTX Men's Trail-Running Shoes (Outer Space/Butterfly) Expired

There's always a guy out there who swears that his HOKAs last forever. That's not the case for most people.

The company that owns HOKA is preoccupied with fashion. They started off selling flip flops in the 1970s. They purchased UGGS in the late 1990s. By the the early 2000s their TEVA sandal segment began to experience stagnant sales. The entire focus shifted to UGGS, a women's fashion boot brand with a characteristically thick sole and garish colors that included faux fur trims. They purchased HOKA in 2009. HOKA's signature thick soled design dovetailed nicely with the UGGS look. Deckers probably saw HOKA as potential "UGGS for Men" compliment to their mainline ladies fashion boot brand. Gradually, Deckers has shaped and massaged HOKA into fashion forward brand that combines tangential athletic function with eye-popping combinations of thick bucket-styled foam slabs and colorful but garish color way schemes. Deckers via UGGS and HOKA along with Crocs Inc made ugly shoes popular with the masses.

Deckers likely devotes very little funds to research and development for their running products. This is why HOKA has fallen to the rear guard when it comes to marathon racing shoes. Shoe experts have pointed out that the car on plate in the Carbon X is the least effective design on the market. This lack of focus and investment in innovation has allowed legacy brands such as Asics and Saucony, which had been meandering for years, to catch up and overtake HOKA in the field of plated performance shoes. Most running shoe brands, both legacy and newer upstarts, have co-opted Deckers by absorbing the most fruitful concepts that the original HOKA shoes had introduced such as maximalist stack heights and the rockered geometry. This leaves HOKA with a weakened moat to differentiate their products from competitors.

Interestingly, Deckers has not responded to these emergent challenges by reprioritizing innovation. Instead they have moved more aggressively into converting HOKA into a fashion-fit casual brand. There appears to be little appetite within Deckers to press forward with supercritical foam development. Only two models appear to have a supercritical foam. The rest rely on dated EVA compounds. Deckers has even established a new product line, Deckers Lab, that evidences a blending of design elements from their HOKA and UGGS. The new sandals in the Deckers Lab line feature HOKA foam slabs for the platform and UGGS styled uppers. They're marketed predominantly towards women. This mixing of product lines suggests that Deckers is more focused on scavenging the HOKA brand for it's technology to feed design ideas for it's entirely fashion focused product lines and instead of really investing in the HOKA brand itself to ensure it can keep up with the competitive running shoe environment.

BEWARE: this model has that characteristically obtrusive high arch that plagues most HOKA shoes.

Durability is also going to very poor for this model because it uses low durometer EVA that is only sparsly protected by cheap water-downed rubber. The rubber HOKA uses on their non-Vibram soles is really bad compared to other brands.

There's always a guy out there who swears that his HOKAs last forever. That's not the case for most people.

The company that owns HOKA is preoccupied with fashion. They started off selling flip flops in the 1970s. They purchased UGGS in the late 1990s. By the the early 2000s their TEVA sandal segment began to experience stagnant sales. The entire focus shifted to UGGS, a women's fashion boot brand with a characteristically thick sole and garish colors that included faux fur trims. They purchased HOKA in 2009. HOKA's signature thick soled design dovetailed nicely with the UGGS look. Deckers probably saw HOKA as potential "UGGS for Men" compliment to their mainline ladies fashion boot brand. Gradually, Deckers has shaped and massaged HOKA into fashion forward brand that combines tangential athletic function with eye-popping combinations of thick bucket-styled foam slabs and colorful but garish color way schemes. Deckers via UGGS and HOKA along with Crocs Inc made ugly shoes popular with the masses.

Deckers likely devotes very little funds to research and development for their running products. This is why HOKA has fallen to the rear guard when it comes to marathon racing shoes. Shoe experts have pointed out that the car on plate in the Carbon X is the least effective design on the market. This lack of focus and investment in innovation has allowed legacy brands such as Asics and Saucony, which had been meandering for years, to catch up and overtake HOKA in the field of plated performance shoes. Most running shoe brands, both legacy and newer upstarts, have co-opted Deckers by absorbing the most fruitful concepts that the original HOKA shoes had introduced such as maximalist stack heights and the rockered geometry. This leaves HOKA with a weakened moat to differentiate their products from competitors.

Interestingly, Deckers has not responded to these emergent challenges by reprioritizing innovation. Instead they have moved more aggressively into converting HOKA into a fashion-fit casual brand. There appears to be little appetite within Deckers to press forward with supercritical foam development. Only two models appear to have a supercritical foam. The rest rely on dated EVA compounds. Deckers has even established a new product line, Deckers Lab, that evidences a blending of design elements from their HOKA and UGGS. The new sandals in the Deckers Lab line feature HOKA foam slabs for the platform and UGGS styled uppers. They're marketed predominantly towards women. This mixing of product lines suggests that Deckers is more focused on scavenging the HOKA brand for it's technology to feed design ideas for it's entirely fashion focused product lines and instead of really investing in the HOKA brand itself to ensure it can keep up with the competitive running shoe environment.

You are always writing in Hoka thread's always negative, what's your purpose please don't say to educate because your posts are so long most people switch off after a paragraph

So how do you know "most" people have issues with wear, I've have and had numerous pairs and never had a problem……. So there's at least 2 of us in this short thread who are ok with their wear……

Last Question do you have those paragraphs somewhere else so you can just cut and paste responses or do you actually type those in ?

Exactly right, buddies pair literally fell apart over the course of one go at Long's Peak. Wasn't the shoe I would have picked to start, but did not think the sole would literally be falling apart in one hike.

That's pretty wild. My bad experiences with HOKA durability are how asphalt easily shreds that so called "durable" rubber they sparsely cover the bottom their shoes with. One pair shredded so bad from just walking that they skewed the balance of the shoes laterally. Super awkward to walk on. Had to trash them. Couldn't even retire them to lawn work use.

You are always writing in Hoka thread's always negative, what's your purpose please don't say to educate because your posts are so long most people switch off after a paragraph

So how do you know "most" people have issues with wear, I've have and had numerous pairs and never had a problem……. So there's at least 2 of us in this short thread who are ok with their wear……

Last Question do you have those paragraphs somewhere else so you can just cut and paste responses or do you actually type those in ?

I come up with these comments on the fly. Certain things annoy me. HOKA is one of them. Scan through Decker's quarterly earnings reports for 2021 and 2022. Note the YoY profit increases of over 50%. Note the inflated margins. When you buy a HOKA shoe you're lining the pockets of C-suite douche bags. Very little of that money finds it's way into the actual product be that R&D or materials quality. That's why the shoes crap out and often don't perform as well as the competition. HOKA is fine with this current state of affairs because it means that shoes that break down quicker get REPLACED quicker. That's more cheddar for the share holders and less value for the consumer.

More and more people are coming to this realization. HOKA never had much pull with serious runners and it's starting to alienate it's customer base because of durability issues, painful arch shape issues, and inflated prices.

By all means, keep buying your disposable HOKAs. But I think there's better value in shoes from Asics, Saucony, and even Brooks. Asics shoes have better rubber. Their Guidesole geometry is better than the squishy HOKA meta rocker. Saucony has the acclaimed Speedroll geometry. Brooks has full rubber coverage on their outsoles. Adidas and Craft Sportswear partner with tire companies, Goodyear and Continental to ensure their shoes don't fall apart prematurely like those from HOKA.

I can go on and on. Puma and Sketchers have more appealing running options. Nike has better plated racers.

Yawn……..you must be fun at parties

That reminds me. HOKA is popular with seniors. It's afternoon. You might be starting to drift off.

opinions in shoe threads are as useful as those in mattress threads. everyone has different feet sizes, arches, width, shoe uses and shoe preferences. you have to go with what works for you.

in my case i have had plantar fasciitis for 2 years. have tried steroid shots, pulse treatments, tenex treatments, orthotics, PT, etc. shoes were causing me a lot of issues and significant pain. i came across Hoka as a recommendation and bought these,. They have helped more than any other shoe I have worn in my life. Doesn't mean I need to tell someone else what to wear on their feet since their user experience will be entirely different than mine.

There's always a guy out there who swears that his HOKAs last forever. That's not the case for most people.

The company that owns HOKA is preoccupied with fashion. They started off selling flip flops in the 1970s. They purchased UGGS in the late 1990s. By the the early 2000s their TEVA sandal segment began to experience stagnant sales. The entire focus shifted to UGGS, a women's fashion boot brand with a characteristically thick sole and garish colors that included faux fur trims. They purchased HOKA in 2009. HOKA's signature thick soled design dovetailed nicely with the UGGS look. Deckers probably saw HOKA as potential "UGGS for Men" compliment to their mainline ladies fashion boot brand. Gradually, Deckers has shaped and massaged HOKA into fashion forward brand that combines tangential athletic function with eye-popping combinations of thick bucket-styled foam slabs and colorful but garish color way schemes. Deckers via UGGS and HOKA along with Crocs Inc made ugly shoes popular with the masses.

Deckers likely devotes very little funds to research and development for their running products. This is why HOKA has fallen to the rear guard when it comes to marathon racing shoes. Shoe experts have pointed out that the car on plate in the Carbon X is the least effective design on the market. This lack of focus and investment in innovation has allowed legacy brands such as Asics and Saucony, which had been meandering for years, to catch up and overtake HOKA in the field of plated performance shoes. Most running shoe brands, both legacy and newer upstarts, have co-opted Deckers by absorbing the most fruitful concepts that the original HOKA shoes had introduced such as maximalist stack heights and the rockered geometry. This leaves HOKA with a weakened moat to differentiate their products from competitors.

Interestingly, Deckers has not responded to these emergent challenges by reprioritizing innovation. Instead they have moved more aggressively into converting HOKA into a fashion-fit casual brand. There appears to be little appetite within Deckers to press forward with supercritical foam development. Only two models appear to have a supercritical foam. The rest rely on dated EVA compounds. Deckers has even established a new product line, Deckers Lab, that evidences a blending of design elements from their HOKA and UGGS. The new sandals in the Deckers Lab line feature HOKA foam slabs for the platform and UGGS styled uppers. They're marketed predominantly towards women. This mixing of product lines suggests that Deckers is more focused on scavenging the HOKA brand for it's technology to feed design ideas for it's entirely fashion focused product lines and instead of really investing in the HOKA brand itself to ensure it can keep up with the competitive running shoe environment.

Nothing more than a red herring.

Them having the least efficient carbon sole has nothing to do with durability or quality. If they were half as bad as you claim, they wouldn't be nearing $1B in sales.