The Best Chinese Carbon and it's Not Even Close

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]Many of you might have seen that I just revisited the DynaFlyte Danny and one.

[00:00:04]It got my gears turning. Today, I revisited the Dawin PB Pro, which no exaggeration, is competitive with the very best marathon racing shoes in the world. Today was an excellent workout, and we're going to discuss not only the workout, nor just the shoe, but giving overview and updated thoughts on all of the Chinese carbon that I've run in thus far.

[00:00:32]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Guys, a pretty crazy workout. It was intended to be some 800 repeats, but I didn't actually program anything into my watch. So, when I got to the track and they were setting up graduation on the track, I was waylaid by literal chairs for audience members in the all of the lanes. So, I bailed out on that.

[00:01:18]Luckily, by the time you get to the U of R, there are hills everywhere. So, I was like, "Well, I haven't done hill sprints in a while. That's what I'll do today."

[00:01:27]And there's this nice little progression of hills starting at the track, right?

[00:01:32]That's built right nestled into a hill.

[00:01:36]And then I got I went up to the top of the campus, right? And then there's another hill when you get to Mount Hope Cemetery, and the whole cemetery is a hill, hence the name Mount Hope. And I hope you picked up on that. And the and there are several more hills once you get to the top. So, it's like you get to the top it levels off and then there's a series of like two and a half bigger hills. So, I just progressively hit every single hill in these at a full sprint besides the long grinding one up to the top of Mount Hope cuz that's a long grinding one. But, this handled it very enjoyably. I felt stable, I felt fast and that's what I want in hill sprints. is like it you're going at very high speed so whatever you're wearing needs to be stable to a certain degree because if you have any uncertainty in the shoe, like I don't want to know what's going to happen to me if I come undone at sub 4:30 pace. Like that would be a disaster. So, I felt very confident in these going up the hills and very fast. It's not normal for me to be moving at those speeds. And yeah, it was really cool until sort of I was done with the hill sprints and my legs I was surprised even during the workout like or during the run following the hill sprints. I was only about halfway through the run. My legs were wobbly afterwards. It was immediately apparent how much effort I put into my legs today and that's great.

[00:03:15]That's the type of stimulus that I need to progress my training right now. So, great session about the shoes. Uh before we get into the ride and the sensation and stuff, I want to give everybody a quick reminder of the stats. I actually don't know the uh stack height, but it's somewhere in the 34-36 range. It's not a full stack racer. Um but, yeah, I couldn't find any sources of it online. I didn't dig super hard.

[00:03:44]My original review on the Dow and PV Pro will include those stats. But, the drop is 4 mm. I remember that much. Uh the weight I just weighed it again, it's 153 g. I think that I got this in a size 10.

[00:03:59]Um it's the size also has rubbed off of the shoe. Like the the little, you know, how there's a thing inside of shoes that tell you what size it is. Yeah, that's gone. That doesn't exist anymore in this shoe. So, on neither shoe, right? So, it's I'm pretty sure it's a size 10. At least it fits like a size 10 would on my feet. Um and 153 g is just bananas for such a an incredible ride. It also has full uncompressed, this is from their marketing material, full uncompressed aliphatic TPU. Now, that could just be because that was the foam that was on the tip of everybody's tongue when they dropped this shoe. It could just be a marketing ploy because it could be a different, you know, compound type, but it's certainly an uncompressed foam cuz it has the fuzzy edges on it. And it's the foam that people have rumored to be the same as the foam in the Audios Pro Evo 2 and potentially 1. Um so, I don't know whether that's true or not, but because I don't have the Pro Evo 2 or 1, but that's what people say. Fit-wise, it fits really well. Um I would assume that this is a 10. It fits like a 10.

[00:05:17]Um yeah, and it fits really nicely on my foot. No lockdown issues, yada yada. Uh the important thing here, the ride on this is definitely not the bounciest and not the most expressive or exuberant.

[00:05:34]It's almost like a stoic feeling shoe where it's very business-oriented and very fast. It feels like almost kind of like the Fast R 3 in that regard where I wouldn't call the fast r 3 a fun shoe ever. Like that's not a fun It's not fun to run in that shoe, but you're going to get a PR in that shoe. You know what I mean? And that's kind of how the Dolan PV Pro feels. Right before my last marathon, I had made a video evaluating whether or not I was going to actually switch out of the Metaspeed Edge Tokyo due to some toe rubbing that I was getting in that shoe and just some lack of confidence in general. I'm indecisive before race day as probably many of you are about lots of things. Like there's that anxiety that builds inside of you.

[00:06:23]And one of the ways that anxiety was manifesting for me before my last marathon was the shoe decision. Because I have so many shoes, I made the problem bigger for myself. And so I was anxious about what shoe to choose. This was the runner-up choice. And actually after today's run, I really am glad that I didn't pick this as my choice for the previous marathon that I did. Not only because I had a great race in my previous marathon, but because I was just trashed after today. Like it's not even been a long time. It's been like an hour or two since I got back from the run and my legs are like wobbly right now. Granted, I do not put that much speed into any of my runs. This is the some of the fastest top-end pace that I put into any run, maybe ever. Like my Garmin was telling me my peak pace was like 3:46 per mile, right? So that's fast.

[00:07:20]>> [laughter] >> That's sprinting, right? It's hill sprints. I didn't sustain that for any amount of time, but I don't know if I've ever seen a pace like that before. It's a credit to the shoe because I don't typically get up to speeds like that.

[00:07:34]And I think that there is something to this being as light as it is, as stable as it is that imbued me with the confidence to hit those hill repeats at the speed that I hit them.

[00:07:47]Yeah, super good. Super super good. Some like downsides to the shoe, I think frankly are the outsole is shaved bit bald. I mean, it's it looks still sort of new kind of, but when you get zoomed in on it, it's really not.

[00:08:10]It's like the texture has left the outsole and it's slippery. It's not even like slippery in the wet. If there's any loose gravel or anything, it's slippery there, too. So, it's really not a great outsole. I mean, when it was new, I didn't have any issues with it, but since the texture wore away so quickly on this, I wouldn't you know, necessarily recommend it for people that are running a wet marathon.

[00:08:37]I haven't taken this in the wet in a long time, so I don't actually know how it performs in the wet, but I know today on some of the looser gravel that I was running on, I didn't have the 100% confidence in this.

[00:08:49]But, the truth is that for what this is, it is lower stack than a lot of these fully stacked carbon plated racing shoes, but I think that this is truly competitive with things like the Fast-R 3 and with certainly with the Metaspeed Edge Tokyo. That tier of shoe, I think that the Deviate Nitro Elite sort of blows out of the water for just like horsepower like ability capability, but I think that maybe last summer when I was running in this a lot, I was not quite as strong of a runner and I didn't get it yet. Um and it's just really impressive. It's a really impressive shoe. It's 150 g. It's Yeah, feels a lot faster than pretty much every shoe that I own. And yeah, I was really, really happy with today's run. I don't know if you could tell. And this foam is excellent, also. We revisited the DynaFlyte fish Danny and one the other day, and that has a really light and airy peba that had degraded in some 100 miles or, you know, around about 100 miles. This now has 117 miles on it, and I don't remember it feeling different than this. Granted, it has been quite some time since I laced this up. So, perhaps there has been a degradation over time. I just don't know. I don't even remember really all of the things that I felt about this shoe, you know, 6, 7 months ago when I was running in it. But what I can tell you for right now is this feels like a new, like a new super shoe to me. I mean, it's a little less bouncy, right, than a lot of the more bouncy-oriented super shoes on the market. But comparing it to something like the Fastar 3, I think it might be slightly less vertically bouncy even than the Fastar 3, but it's more aligned with how the ride on the Fastar 3 actually is than something like the Fadian 6 Elite, right, that's bounce-oriented or like the Hoka Cielo X1, right, bounce-oriented shoe. This is more of a like pro- professional implement of speed.

[00:11:05]Okay.

[00:11:06]I've said a lot about the JOE N PB Pro.

[00:11:09]Love it. We're going to go one by one through all of the Chinese shoes, the Chinese carbons that I have run in and give you some updated thoughts. This one's going to be quick. DynaFlyte Danny and one, I talked about this the other day. Uh my updated thoughts are that the foam is really cooked and it's not super usable anymore, not least of which because of the indentations here uh that the foam is just completely compressed like all of the air in that area of the shoe has been you know bruised to death. And yeah, I mean this is a really nice comfortable option for racing. It's just there are there's some plate feel. It's not a full length carbon which I actually do think works to the shoe's credit, but I do also think that it limits the very top end of performance because of how flexible it is. And you could even hear I just cracked something in here. Yeah, it's it's falling apart a little bit as a shoe and that's okay. So that's the updated thoughts on the Danny in one.

[00:12:14]Fading in 6 Elite, I need to get more miles on this since the initial miles that I ran in it and probably you'll see me doing so soon.

[00:12:23]But this is the total opposite end of the spectrum to the Delon PB prowl. It's the bounciest probably still the bounciest super shoe that I've ever run in. Not even probably, it's not even close. This is extremely like comically hilariously bouncy.

[00:12:40]And that's sort of where in lies the chaos of the shoe. I wouldn't take this for any really fast races. Probably wouldn't trust myself in it for a PR attempt, but it sure is fun. And yeah, I think that especially after the first couple of runs like the third run that I did in this, I did get the lacing dialed in enough to the point where I felt more confident in this being what I do think is the incorrect size. So if you're in between sizes, a real quick note on the Fading in 6 Elite is that it's I got this in a 10. I'm in between a 10 and a 9.5. The 10 was too big. So go with your half size down. I could see some people if they really prefer a snug fit even going a full size down. It's that big. But I am making it work in a size 10. And yeah, it's a it's a blast of a shoe. It's heavier than everything else on this list. Um but, it is also the most fully stacked shoe on this list, and it feels like it. It feels like a bigger shoe compared to the other one. Anta C202 G9 2. Uh this is another lower stack um option as a carbon plated racing shoe. The claimed stack is 34 30.

[00:13:54]I do feel like it feels around the same stack as the Dawang PB Pro, but maybe even slightly taller. Um I don't think that it feels like the 34 in the heel. I think it's probably closer to 36 or even 38. Does not have an insole in it. Um and the upper is similar to the upper on the Adios Pro 4. The foam is similar to the foam in the Adios Pro 4. It feels pretty much like the Adios Pro 4.

[00:14:26]It is very, very nice. I actually think this is a great shoe. Although, the sizing again with Anta, Antas run small.

[00:14:34]So, this 10 fits like a 9 and 1/2 to me.

[00:14:37]Uh so, you just got to play with the sizing with these different brands. They have different um understandings of sizing. And it's not like the centimeter measurement is any different for these shoes. They're all listing the same like 280 cm for size 10. This is really good though. The one like potential red flag is that it rubbed my left pinky toe uh pretty bad the last time I ran in it, but it did go away over the course of running in it. And the other quirk with this shoe is that it has like a weird loosening to the upper. Like, I've never had a shoe loosen like this over the course of the run, but it you know, you start your run, it's laced down, it's locked down, it's secure. And then throughout the run, it literally loosens. And I think it's to do with uh Anta's lack of understanding of what the point of serrated laces are, where the serrations in these laces are not grippy enough on the eyelet chain. And so, if you have like one eyelet parallel that's looser than the others, that looseness will filter into the other eyelet parallels, and then loosen the entire shoe. It'll like blow out the entire shoe.

[00:15:50]Um the Win, on the other hand, understands serrated laces really well and what the point of them is, and these grip the eyelet chain better than any shoe that I've actually tried, for what it's worth. [laughter] So, these are This is a really secure shoe, the Win PB Pro. I don't want you to think that I dislike the C202 G9. I think it's a rapid knife of a shoe. It feels very fast on foot, and it sort of inspires you to, you know, take sharp turns and go really, really fast. And yeah, I feel like you're flying with the wind. And actually, another shoe that does that is the 361 degrees Mirrored Nude 2.

[00:16:32]Um this is so fast. It feels like that nice chaotic bouncy PEBA, really explosive, really compressive and explosive, and a super fun like half-marathon oriented racing shoe. I mean, it's a carbon plated racing shoe with PEBA that is really explosive. It's like a traditional formula for these racing shoes that just really feels fast. It also doesn't have an insole in it, so that contributes I think that's There's something to that that probably not everybody is always going to like, but that in these two shoes that I found is actually an interesting alternative to having an insole.

[00:17:14]Um with the Mirrored Nude 2, you probably won't see me running in this anymore um because I did step on a rock on one of my workouts and there's a divot here that for me on that workout in particular, just completely tanked the propulsiveness in this part of the forefoot right under where I'm pushing off to propel myself forward. So, it's I don't know, not durable, a little frustrated at the durability on this shoe because it was expensive for a Chinese running shoe. Granted, I got it when it released. So, you know, that's on me for paying a little bit more than I should have. But, like I think it was like 220 or something. So, this is expensive when I bought it. Um but it was a lot of fun when I was running in it. The problem is I'm not so confident that I want to take this out again because I, you know, compressed and destroyed the foam. So, not a durable shoe, definitely a little frustrating on that.

[00:18:16]And but feels very much like a blast to run in. It's a very, very fun shoe. Back to the DOOM PB Pro really quick. It is to me the winner out of all of these shoes right now. The only one that could actually challenge it is the Feidian 6 Elite from Li-Ning. This is the only one that I feel is applicable to a wider audience as well. I do feel like the DOOM PB Pro is going to be suited towards faster runners and particularly forefoot runners. There's not much of a heel going on back here. Um and there's certainly not much rubber back there either, right? And it's flat, right? So, for all of you uh heel strikers, that's probably not going to be the best. The Li-Ning uh Feidian 6 Elite is and has been for the American audience a breakout hit uh and I think that it's just such a comically good fun time shoe that a lot of people are going to enjoy it whether or not they end up racing in it and I could see this down the line when I have way too many racing shoes becoming like a long run shoe that I go revisit occasionally. So this has been a fun one. Those are all of the Chinese carbons that I've run in so far. I do have more shoes on the way. I will be reviewing many more shoes to come. So I appreciate all your attention and as always stay in motion.