While we all enjoyed the ride of the Cloudmonster Hyper, the upper was the main point of contention between reviewers. Kate, Nate and Max (who all have varying foot shapes and widths) thought it ran big, while Brandon and I thought it fit true to size.
“The length of the Cloudmonster Hyper is too long and the width is too wide for my narrow foot,” says Max, who’s currently dabbling in half-marathon training. “I had to lace these bad boys up quite a bit to get a good lockdown fit because of the excess width, which made the laces quite long and annoying while running. But, despite the width, the upper didn’t bunch up around the toes in the way that excess fabric sometimes does. Plus, the padding around the tongue and heel collar made the lockdown fit comfortable, despite having to tie it so tight.”
Kate and Max also mentioned that, because they had to lace up the shoes so tight, the overlays on the lace cage were pressing into the tops of their feet.
I’m going to come to On’s defense and say that I loved the fit, feel and details of this upper. The fit feels slim to me, which I really appreciate because I absolutely hate the feeling of having too much room. There’s about a thumbnail’s width of space between my toe and the end of the shoe, maybe a little bit more, but it feels like a perfect fit. I didn’t have any heel slippage and I didn’t even have to tie the marathon loop!
I think part of the reason the fit feels so nice and snug is because of the lacing system (you know, the one that Kate and Max bashed). The way the suede lace loops are attached to the material around the midfoot really pull all the material together as I cinch them up without the material bunching or buckling. I would rate this upper as a ten out of ten here. Plus, it's based on the upper used in the uber-speedy On Cloudboom Echo 3–the shoes that helped Nate and Kate earn the Strava crown at the segment behind our office.
It’s hard to recommend the On Cloudmonster Hyper for one specific foot shape, because all of our reviewers who found the fit to be too large have different shaped feet–a fact that left me scratching my head. Max has narrow feet, so it wasn’t a huge surprise to hear him say that the Hyper felt big. Kate is typically in between sizes, and has recently been struggling with finding the proper size across various models. But Nate has wide, high-volume feet, so when he said the Hyper felt big on him I knew something was up.
Your best bet will be to head into your local Fleet Feet to try the shoe on in-person. Fleet Feet outfitters use 3D fit id® foot scanning technology to gather information about your feet and the support they need by taking precise measurements of your foot length, width and arch height, so you can learn a lot about your feet while you’re there.