crooked tongues magazine News Features

With it being an anniversary year for Nike, they had to resurrect some history from the archives. And it doesn't get more core Nike than the relationship between Bill Bowerman and Steve Prefontaine. The Pre Montreal design was originally a running spike for Steve, the rebel runner who was destined for greatness in the summer 1976 Olympics in Montreal, but had his life cut short by an accident in May 1975. An early ambassador for a fledgling Nike, Pre attended the University of Oregon and trained under Bill. Despite some earlier victories in adidas and PUMA footwear, during the Pre Montreal's development, Bowerman made a prototype spike that eschewed the traditional running shoe seams that were damaging Steve's feet in favour of a seamless creation that ensured greater comfort twinned with Coach's dogged determination to rid running shoes of any excess. While it didn't get to shine in Montreal on Prefontaine's feet, he broke a few records in a pair during meets and training in the mid 1970s. That gives the Pre Montreal a certain sense of unfinished business in terms of the man it's named after, but it also represents a work in progress for Nike Running that continues to the present day.

Remember the featherweight Flywire spikes for Beijing 2008? That was a Pre Montreal descendent. And when the #makeitcount campaign leads to this summer's weapons of choice for Nike athletes taking to the track, you can be sure there's some Pre Montreal in there somewhere, from the design cues to the attitude. So if you're assuming that these are just another VNTG drop to make the most of that Waffle tooling, then you're underestimating what this design represents. Of course, reissuing the Japanese-made track spikes would be a curious move, but on Waffle soles, they become the Pre Montreal Racer, with the one piece toe, traditional nylon, leather and suede mix with visible foam, plus the forefoot reinforcement for resilience and stability, all intact, but all sitting on something a little more conducive to everyday wear. Historically significant and still stylistically relevant, the Pre Montreal Racer is a good base for triple shade colourways like the OG USA red, white and blue. These five makeups that are set to arrive next month play with the colours and offer tonal options too, but the swoosh is white leather each time, as was the case with the spikes.

Every colourway works, but we're still biased towards the vintage ones — green and yellow's been sighted, so hopefully the fiery orange and burgundy variations aren't too far off. Appropriately, these shoes are on pre-order now in the Crooked Tongues store for a February release.