The Five Ten Freerider has been adidas’ flagship flat-pedal shoe for roughly fifteen years, and in all that time it never had a clipless version. Not one. Every Freerider that shipped was built around a pin and a flat sole. That streak ended September 29, 2026 (two days after Asa Vermette and Vali Höll won Whistler’s first-ever DH World Cup on the 1199 course), when adidas unveiled a four-model Freerider refresh headlined by the Freerider Pro BOA Clipless. First clipless shoe to ever wear the Freerider name. It’s also the first Five Ten shoe to carry the adidas 3-Stripes and the Five Ten logo side by side, which tells you as much about where this brand is heading as the shoe itself does.

Quick Take

Lineup	Freerider, Freerider Pro, Freerider Pro BOA, Freerider Pro BOA Clipless
Unveiled	Sept 29, 2026, at Whistler’s DH World Cup
Headline model	Freerider Pro BOA Clipless (first-ever clipless Freerider)
Price	Freerider $120 / Freerider Pro BOA $180 / Freerider Pro BOA Clipless $250
Cleat	2-bolt, SPD-compatible, extended channel (+5mm rearward adjustment)
Closure	Dual BOA Li2 dials, offset placement
Rubber	Stealth Marathon (clipless model only)
Toe box	5-layer PORON protection
Ships	March 1, 2027, via adidas.com and the adidas app
Best for:	Gravity and enduro racers who want clip-in retention without losing Freerider-level foot feel
Skip if:	You’re happy on the original lace Freerider and have no reason to clip in

Why the Freerider Never Went Clipless Until Now

Fifteen years is a long time for a shoe to stay in its lane. The Freerider built its reputation as the flat-pedal benchmark: Stealth rubber, a lace-up build, and a sole that our own flat-vs-clipless shoe guide still calls the standard other flats get measured against. Adidas had a separate clip-in line for racers, the Hellcat, and kept the two families apart: Freerider for flats, Hellcat for cleats. According to Mountain Bike Action’s coverage of the launch, that separation is gone now. The Hellcat’s race-focused clipless DNA got folded directly into the Freerider name instead of living on as its own product.

That’s a branding decision as much as an engineering one, and it’s not subtle. Road.cc reported that the adidas 3-Stripes now sit alongside the Five Ten logo on these shoes, a first for the brand since adidas acquired Five Ten in 2011. Every Freerider before this one was a Five Ten product with adidas as the quiet owner in the background. These four shoes are the opposite: adidas branding up front, Five Ten name still there, but clearly positioned as part of adidas’ own cycling category rather than a standalone acquisition running on its own identity.

What’s New in the 2027 Freerider Lineup?

1. Freerider ($120). The casual, lace-up original. Suede upper, Five Ten’s signature DOTTY sole for pin grip, no BOA.
2. Freerider Pro. A lace-up step up from the base model, synthetic upper instead of suede, still a flat-pedal-only design.
3. Freerider Pro BOA ($180). A single BOA Li2 dial replaces laces, PU leather upper, a heel cutout with impact foam. Still flat pedal only.
4. Freerider Pro BOA Clipless ($250). The new one. Dual BOA Li2 dials, Stealth Marathon rubber, a 5-layer PORON toe box, and the first cleat channel the Freerider name has ever had.

The jump from the Freerider Pro BOA to the Clipless isn’t cosmetic. Singletracks’ breakdown of the refresh notes the Clipless model swaps in Stealth Marathon, a harder-wearing compound than the standard Stealth rubber on the flat models, built specifically to hold up around a cleat channel that takes a different kind of wear than pins do. The channel itself is long, with reference markings for XC, MTN, DH, and “SEND” positions, and it lets the cleat sit roughly 5mm further back than it could on the old Hellcat. More room to tune your foot position before you ever touch a wrench.

The BOA and Toe Box Details That Actually Matter on Trail

Two BOA Li2 dials, placed asymmetrically rather than lined up like a ski boot, let you tighten the forefoot and ankle zones independently. Tighten the top of the foot without choking off the toe box, or the reverse, depending on what’s bothering you on a given descent. That’s a meaningfully different fit strategy than the single-dial Pro BOA, and it’s the kind of detail that matters more on a four-minute DH run than it does standing in a shop.

The 5-layer PORON toe box is the other piece worth flagging. PORON is a compression-set-resistant foam — it keeps absorbing impact instead of packing out and going hard after repeated hits, which is exactly the failure mode riders complain about on flat-pedal shoes that take pedal-strike abuse all season. Five layers of it in the toe is a direct answer to rock strikes and pedal clips, not a spec-sheet number chasing a bigger figure.

The cleat setup itself is 2-bolt and SPD-compatible, which means it works with the same Shimano-pattern clipless pedals covered in our SPD vs. Crankbrothers breakdown, not the Crankbrothers eggbeater mounting pattern. If you’re already running Shimano XT or similar, the Freerider Pro BOA Clipless drops straight onto your existing pedals without a cleat-system change.

Whistler Was the Right Stage for This

Debuting a clipless race shoe at a DH World Cup wasn’t an accident of scheduling. Canadian Cycling Magazine’s report from Creekside has Vali Höll and Gracey Hemstreet — who finished first and second in the women’s race — on the Whistler podium in the new shoe, with Amaury Pierron, third in the men’s field that same Sunday, also in the mix. Luke Hontz, adidas’ senior product manager for bike, put it plainly in that same report: “Rather than making incremental updates, we took a step back and reimagined what Freerider could be.” Development input reportedly came from Höll, Greg Minnaar, and Dakotah Norton, which is the kind of athlete list that tells you this shoe was built around World Cup-level demands first and trail riders second.

That’s not a knock on the shoe. It’s a read on who it’s for at launch. Race-developed gear trickles down to the rest of us eventually (the original Freerider did exactly that over fifteen years), but the first production run of anything built with Minnaar and Norton’s input is going to ride like it, for better or worse, depending on how much you value a stiffer, race-tuned platform over an all-day trail feel.

Who Should Actually Buy the Freerider Pro BOA Clipless

Gravity and enduro racers already on clipless pedals. The combination of Stealth Marathon durability, dual BOA precision, and a 2-bolt SPD cleat interface is built for exactly this rider — someone putting the shoe through repeated hard stops and restarts on a race run, not a four-hour trail ride.

Riders who loved the Freerider’s fit and sole feel but switched to clipless pedals years ago. If you’ve been riding a generic SPD shoe because nothing clipless carried the Freerider name, this is the first time that trade-off goes away.

Anyone who’s worn through a toe box from pedal strikes. The 5-layer PORON construction is a direct answer to that specific failure mode, and it’s a legitimate upgrade over most clipless shoes in this price range.

Who Should Skip It

Flat pedal riders with no plans to switch. The Freerider, Freerider Pro, and Freerider Pro BOA all stay flat-only, and our flat vs. clipless guide still has reasons why most technical-terrain riders are better off there. Nothing about this launch changes that calculus.

Budget-conscious buyers. At $250, the Clipless model is the most expensive shoe adidas has put the Freerider name on. The $180 Pro BOA or the $120 base Freerider cover most riders’ needs for considerably less, assuming you’re not clipping in.

Anyone who wants a proven track record before spending $250. This shoe doesn’t ship until March 1, 2027. The World Cup podium appearances are a strong signal, but they’re adidas’ own athletes on adidas’ own product — the same caveat that applied when DRIFT launched the Minna a few weeks back with no independent trail testing behind it yet.

The Bottom Line

Fifteen years of flat-pedal-only history ended because adidas decided the Freerider name was bigger than the flat-pedal category it built its reputation in. The Freerider Pro BOA Clipless brings real engineering to back that decision up — dual BOA dials, Stealth Marathon rubber, a toe box built for repeated impact, and a cleat channel with room to actually tune your position. At $250 it’s priced like the race shoe it is, developed with input from that same World Cup roster rather than built down to a trail-riding price point. Whether that race pedigree translates into an all-day trail shoe once it’s actually on shelves in March is the open question. The fact that it exists at all, after fifteen years of the Freerider staying flat-only, is the real story here.

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Launch details, pricing, and specs sourced from adidas’ official Five Ten Freerider page, Mountain Bike Action, Singletracks, Canadian Cycling Magazine, and road.cc. No test pair has been ridden by our team at time of publication.