adidas Mega Torsion RVI

  • MODEL: ADIDAS MEGA TORSION RVI
  • TYPE: RUNNING
  • MADE IN: CHINA
  • MADE ON: 03/10
  • ART.NO: G42136

Announced in 2009, the Mega Torsion family was meant as a non-performance commemoration for the Torsion technology, though did they succeed or was it a stillborn project?

Torsion is a superb tech introduced to sole units many years ago, and while it brought on design changes and certainly some character flare, the main purpose behind the advancement was for performance benefits. It’s no wonder then that more than a few sneaker connoisseurs (especially lovers of adidas running trainers) felt the project fell flat on its face, providing unexciting releases that weren’t even all that comfortable in the end.

But before we get too opinionated lets look back over what’s been dropped. The whole Mega Torsion family is hard to summarize as there seem to have been a wide variety of upgrades and sub-models in quite a similar fashion to how the ZX family grew. To name a few, there’s the Mega Torsion Flex and Flex Cc, which each had a Torsion bar running straight through their flexible, toothed outsoles. Quite a unique – albeit relatively ugly – design. The rest of the upper was simplistic, completed with a heel brace mirroring that of the ZX 5000.

There’s also been a Mega Torsion RS upgrade though we’re not sure of the release date or significance behind the acronym. Additionally around the Fall of 2011 there were at least four drops of the Mega Torsion RSP II, which featured a very similar sole unit to that of the RVIs pictured here, though no all black silhouettes were released. Some Mega Torsion RL’s were produced too, which had less complex eyelets up front but again we’ve not dug up an exact timeline on their production. Even a higher cut Mega Torsion XTH was dropped that featured some wildly bright colorways that were exclusively available at off-shoot, online boutiques like Yoox.

As for these Mega Torsion RVIs, they appear to be a futuristic take on the ZX 800 and to our current knowledge this exact pair was never released. There have been some non-Consortium pairs that were pushed out in the same all-black upper colorway, though minus the super buttery leather and the tech’d out sole unit. Overall it’s obvious that adidas wanted to not only honor their Torsion system but also inject some sort of special sauce into the ZX family (maybe hoping to recreate it) in the name of the MEGA series.

So, jogging around full circle we’re eager to know: what do you OG runner lovers out there think? Did adidas succeed or was it just another novel attempt to sling a couple extra silhouettes much like the over-hyped Megalizer kicks?

written by Dylan Cromwell

photography by errol