‘Pre’ Montreal Racers

In regard to old Nike shoes, my all time favorite is the ‘Pre’ Montreal waffle racer. The silhouette’s track spike form was originally intended for Steve Prefontaine to wear at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. Both of those factors served as the base of my vision for a Nike driving/racing shoe.
The first stage for these shoes began with getting a donor shoe to completely strip apart and dissect all pieces to best understand the shoe so as to learn what I can replicate or expand upon.

When all panels were cut out, I laid them on some card stock paper and traced them all out to get a solid stencil. When it comes to some of the stich lines or panel placement I will lay the original panel over and I’ll take a pointed object to point through the stich marks to leave a faint marking to which I will pencil in a line and connect the dots.
One piece that was a bit of a challenge to find for these shoes was the suede. The suede on the donor shoe was a bit darker than a Royal Blue which was too bright for me. After referencing some photos of the original pair, I was able to find an exact hide in a 2.5 oz roll.

I wanted to keep the shoe light as well so I went with a thin sheet of foam that had fusible sides and ironed on the Red nylon and White satin liner.
For the Swoosh and heel tab, I just reused the original pieces but still traced them prior so when I go to remake these later, I will have a nice stencil ready to go.
Because the shoe has a one piece toe, the line was difficult to sew in. Normally the shoe will be flat but the shoe was already all connected up. When a shoe is flat and the liner is going to be applied, you will curve the shoe as you sew so you have a negative amount of liner fabric. If you keep the shoe completely flat when sewing the liner, then it will be creased once it is shaped up. Because this was already shaped up I had to force the curve so as to have less liner than outside fabric. There was a White vinyl sheet I went to use originally but couldn’t get it to stretch as what was needed so I opted for a White mesh option.

When comparing the Jordan lasting process to this one, I had to be very diligent about getting the sole as flat and smooth as possible. The Jordans are both glued and stitched to the midsole while these will be only glued.
I had marked previously where the upper will connect to the midsole and stitched just before that so as to conceal the stitches.
The suede was very soft and stretchy making the toe lasting process be very forgiving. While I would normally use the scuba fabric for the toe padding, I did not use any of that for these as when Bill Bowerman first made these he did not use any padding there so I went for an authentic route of replication

For the shoe last I had some Converse ones in my size ready to go as they were the planned base from the beginning. The problem with that is the toe is more pointy than what I want and need.

To fix the toe shape, I popped out the Converse last and stuffed my ‘85 Jordan last in. Because that one is much bigger in the heel, I had to keep it broken open. I carefully peeled back the toe from the glued sole and re nailed and glued the pieces back down giving it a more rounded shape like the original pair instead of a pointed one.

I wanted to originally make these into track spikes but because the donor pieces for that was not working, I put that on hold and ordered some closed cell foam in a 1/4 and 1/8 inch thick roll. The 1/4 piece is displayed here as being glued to the sole of the shoe. I then dremeled part of it down to then make it have a seamless look before gluing the treaded sole to the bottom of the shoe.
For the insole, I took the original one that came with the shoe and glued the 1/8 piece to it for a little extra cushion.

Paying tribute to the running roots of this shoe, I found a tread pattern on some rubber that resembles the pattern of what tracks are made of today.

After inhaling copious amounts of cancerous fumes from the glue when applying it to the upper, I then used a heat gun to the edges of it and took a hammer to the sole to really smack it in to place before pinching it with my hands to fully adhere to the upper.
I took them for a test drive, no pun intended, and they felt great. There are some areas I need to improve upon such as doing a rolled heel which I will need to thin down the sole to roll on to the heel, but other than that they were comfortable and not bulky, but super sleek.
I will also make the tongue from scratch on the next one instead of using the donor’s as the exposed foam tongue is so iconic, plus I can give it more padding there.