Victor VG2 NitroLite Badminton Shoe Review - Ultra Thick Removable Midsole and Insole?
- CKYew
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
The Victor VG2 NitroLite badminton shoe is something I have never tested before. It's an incredibly interesting and innovative shoe, especially in the badminton world, so let's see how it performs! I mean, look at how thick that midsole is!
Review Of Appearance, Materials & Specifications Of Victor VG2 NitroLite Badminton Shoes
The Victor VG2 NitroLite Badminton shoe has an innovative design that actually allows you to remove or drop in a replacement midsole. Typically, you can remove and replace a badminton shoe's insole, but not the midsole!
But first, let’s zoom out a little bit more and learn a few things about shoe terminology. The outsole is where all the non-marking grippy material lives. We then normally see the midsole, which is typically built into the shoe (and not replaceable). Then we have the insole, which is replaceable in most shoes and is often the first thing that we wear through and find holes in.
Those of you who are into your running shoes will have heard of something called stack height and heel-to-toe drop. The stack height is the amount of cushioning that you find in the middle of a badminton shoe, and the heel-to-toe drop is the difference in height of the stack in the heel compared to the toes.
From my experience, badminton shoes don't tend to have overly high stack heights and the heel-to-drop is also fairly minimal. For the shoes that are focused on more cushioning, they will tend to have slightly higher stack heights, whilst the ones focusing on ultralight, ultra-fast shoes tend to be a bit skinnier on the stack height.
For this VG2, the finish quality on the shoe is amazing. It looks incredibly well-made and feels quite solid in your hands too. It is actually the heaviest badminton shoe that I have ever measured on my channel, coming in at just under 800g per pair. When I measured them individually, one side was 395g, and the other was 402g, getting us a total of 797g. I had tested these for quite a long time before weighing them, but I never felt that they would turn out to be the heaviest shoes on the channel so far.
Previously, the heaviest badminton shoe that I had tried and tested were the Yonex Comfort Z (review here), coming in at 740g a pair in my size of 280mm. For Victor badminton shoes, the heaviest shoe I have tested is the Victor A970 NitroLite (review here) at 732g per pair. I rated the A970 incredibly highly in my review and it is currently worn by many elite players on the World Tour such as Lee Zii Jia and Anders Antonsen.
Obviously, the most special thing about this VG2 shoe is the drop-in midsole. It is quite hard to remove them, but once you can pull them out of the shoe, you will find that they are constructed from different types of materials.
There is also this Neo duplex wording moulded into the midsole. Squeezing the midsole, I can feel that it is constructed with materials of different densities, especially towards the outside edge of the midsole. On the top, it is lined with a grippy insole which is permanently glued on. If the top ever wears out, you will be looking to replace the whole midsole.
Also included in the box were these very thin, flat additional insoles which I believe are supposed to go underneath this piece of replacement midsole and above the strobel. There is a small strip of double-sided tape underneath it to ensure it adheres properly when applied. I also measured the thickness of these additional pair of insoles and they are just about 2 mm in thickness and it is designed to decrease the gap between your foot and shoe upper.
In terms of weight, the midsole itself is 85g a side and the additional piece of insole is just 9g. That also means the empty shoe without any of these insoles is just about 310g. The stack height of the midsole is around an inch or 25mm and this is just me eyeballing it with a ruler.
In terms of looks, it is quite unique with the blend of blue and gold and I received quite a few compliments from players when seeing the shoe. I also found quite a few of my friends actually bent down and rubbed the mesh all around the shoe. They were curious about what material it was and the threads certainly surprised them a little bit.
As I mentioned at the start, the shoe felt very well built and it feels like quite a durable shoe. It will be interesting to see how well it copes with slightly dusty halls. It felt grippy fresh from the box and there was also an additional layer of rubber added to the very front of the shoe which should add some extra durability.
The laces that are supplied with the shoe are flat laces and not round laces. They are short, especially when you are laced up through all the holes that are available in the shoe. This sample shoe that I have is in size 3E in terms of width, which is a standard width for a badminton shoe. I have not seen a wide version of this shoe in 4E width or a narrower version in 2E width.
In all honesty, I’m not actually sure what the ultimate objective was of designing this midsole to make it removable. It could be that Victor wanted the shoe to be the ultimate durable badminton shoe and have its most important cushioning element, the midsole, be replaceable and dropped in as and when needed. I can see that being an advantage, but I'm not sure if the replaceable midsole will be easy to source as a replacement, especially when there’s so many sizes around. We will see!
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Playing Feel & Performance Of Victor VG2 NitroLite Badminton Shoes
In terms of fit, I don't have wide feet so I tend to fit very well in 3E width shoes normally. I felt very comfortable with how well it fit from the heel to the toe section and moving around the shoe didn't feel restrictive at all. It doesn't feel any different to other higher-end badminton shoes.
The cushioning from the VG2 felt firm but also comfortable and I like that. In the multiple training sessions as well as matches that I have worn the shoe, grip levels were amazing on both rubber and non-rubber courts.
I admit I was a bit sceptical seeing the outsole’s design initially. It is also quite surprising that Victor has different outsole designs for different models of their shoes. I thought they were going to stick to a design that has proven to be working very well but I guess this new design worked very well too so no complaints there. Again, as I've mentioned earlier, the shoelaces are just a little bit too short for me but the good thing is, they don't come loose during the multiple two-hour sessions that I've had so far.
Once the VG2 was laced up, moving around felt good, similar to the feel of a well-cushioned and padded high-end badminton shoe. However, I do have to note that over the first few sessions, I did find both pinky toe and big toe on both feet do become a bit raw towards the end of my two-hour sessions. I believe this comes from the midsole as they have a raised, moulded area towards the edges of the whole midsole, around the area where the insole has been permanently glued to the midsole. And because badminton movements involve a lot of lunging and side-to-side changes of direction, it doesn't help that the midsole isn't exactly lockdown like a traditional shoe. I’m not sure the situation will get better if the extra sheet of thin insoles are added underneath the drop-in midsole in this instance.
Whilst the VG2 shoe felt a bit more rigid because of the design to retain its shape better, even when allowing the midsole to be replaced, I did feel the Victor A970 NitroLite or the Yonex 65Z (UK here, review here) being softer and able to wrap my foot a little better when I swapped back to them for comparison.
Overall, I love that the VG2 is different compared to any normal badminton shoe and it did feel very well cushioned and padded. Whilst it's not marketed with the ability to replace its midsole once worn out, with the VG2 being built like a tank on the outside, it looks like allowing players to replace its worn midsole might be a pretty cool idea! Have you tried a shoe like this before? Let me know your thoughts and until then, don't forget to use my code 'CKYEW' for extra discounts and I’ll see you in the next one!