Are you excited about Tracksmith's first shoe - the Eliot Runner?

Add Odlo, Salomon, Daehlie.

They wouldn’t just slap their name on a generic shoe. They would partner with an Asian factory and provide a unique spec and prototype for the factory to match when producing the quantity of shoes ordered.

Once the Tracksmith order is complete that same factory might retool their equipment to make some Brooks or some Nikes the following week.

So unlike pretty much everyone in this discussion I actually held the shoe up as they had it in-store on Sunday on display.

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overall, it’s pretty clunky and heavy compared to something like a Saucony endorphin speed- probably similar in weight to a Pegasus or Nike ZoomFly. it’s not a racing shoe, I’d say it’s a recovery shoe or lifestyle shoe.

I think the other aspect of thread is ignoring is whenever TS makes other products (whether it be a pair of sunglasses or a duffel bag or whatever) the stock is always extremely limited and I expect that to be the case with these as well. Anything other than singlets (which they can pump out by the thousands) are basically just show pieces and I really don’t think the shoe aspect with them is going to go much farther than that to be honest. Unless a big shoe brand player is behind it all for some ungodly reason.

Walk into TS right now or go to the website- you literally can’t even buy their Grayboy cotton T-shirt because they make pretty much everything in extremely limited quantities, do not restock, and order from their manufacturer by the season. So 10 fanboys on the internet will get a pair of these in their size, and TS will use it in their promo shots for the catalog and everyone will stop arguing about it because it won’t be relevant to their life and vanishes from their memory after a few months.

Hey genius, it’s a clothing brand which just introduced their first shoe ever. There probably will be more colorways in the future, you know, like with most brands when they introduce a new shoe model.

Crazy this concept needs to be explained.

Anyone know what the expected population match rate is for running shoes? In other words, every time a new shoe is launched that is generally a good shoe, for what percent does that shoe just not work right?

Brooks Ghost, Pegs, and Hoka Clifton are examples. Everyone else seems to like them. They don’t work for me.

Even if the new TS shoe is a good shoe, what percent that try it on will like it?

That's tricky. Most people who try on a shoe are self selecting. They are self selecting a shoe like ones that work for them, or they are biased towards the brand/shoe. Some will take a shoe that works against their biomechanics for the latter reason. So you can't get a general population match rate really. The second question may be answerable by comparing against running store analytics if you have access to them.

Hello savant, i was explaining to you that some people like other options. I wasn’t complaining they didn’t have multiple color options. I don’t like white shoes, I won’t buy these. No sweat off my back.

Asinine that this needs to be explained

If this does become a real "Turbo 3" then these guys are geniuses. The cult of the Turbo is real. You can't get one of the last T2s from ebay for less than $250-300 in a real size now.

But it's NOT the peg turbo. This shoe is 9.4 oz while the turbo was 8.1 and that's a huge difference.

Also maybe I'm coming off as too much of a hater here, but I can't help but laugh at the display platform it's on in the photo posted above. You can tell they're trying way too hard to play up that "inspired by classic New England responsive natural surfaces" crap. Like, come on. It looks like an elementary school terrarium with the lid off. Anyone else?

I'm glad I don't have to merchandise it in my running store bc it would look ridiculous and I'd have customers asking if it's a trail running shoe. I'd tell them this shoe on this display is like the kid from the city who you take on a short camping trip and they bring six outfits and a hairbrush and ask where the Wi-Fi is.

Nonundisirregardlessly, the urban elites and JOBs will eat it up and buy it quickly.

Tracksmith are definitely doing a limited run of the shoes, and they probably do the same for other stuff. That way they can say they sold out instantly because of so much demand in order to build hype around their brand. Tinman Elite does the same thing with their "drop days".

There is a big difference betwwen Turbo and the TS shoe. Turbo only had about 50% ZoomX in the midsole, the rest was firmer React, so it could be used as a fast shoe.

Agreed. I must say all of their gear is just so highly priced in general. I'm not sure who their target audience is but I can't imagine many under 25yr olds would be able to fork out $US70ish just for a pair of shorts or a tank top. Seems like they are catering to a wealthy elite or haven't thought through their price points very well.

Go to any “hip” neighborhood in any major American city. You’ll see hundreds of thousands of college age kids living in million dollar apartments that their parents bought for them. We don’t have, and have never had, a shortage of monied college kids that companies like Tracksmith can market to.

Some quick math for you: There are approximately 30 million people in the U.S aged 18-25. Out of those only 15% actually participate in some form of running or jogging = 4.5 million. Upper class only account for 1.5% of the US population so Tracksmith probably only has a target audience of max 65,000 18-25yrs across the entire U.S. How many would choose the almost unheard of Tracksmith brand over a more well know brand such as Nike or Adidas? Let's make a conservative guess that it's 5%. Tracksmith would probably only sell to 3,000 18-25yr olds per year and possibly considerably less.

I like most of the items I've purchased from Tracksmith.

The Grayboy t shirts are my favorite along with running tops and bottoms.

Having said that I will not be purchasing these shoes until I hear more reviews from runners.

Not necessarily. And on the second point, that's just not the reason companies do limited runs of things.

That's fine, yet from what I see around at races and online it's the 25-39 y.o. demo that's snapping up TS gear the most. College grads either building decent career earnings or with trust funds. They're still young enough to be highly fashion conscious. They like wearing overpriced sneaks casually and for training, so the Eliot will be right in their wheelhouse.

I wrote about this in my book. Feet are like snowflakes; no two are alike. Even your left and right foot aren't mirror images of each other.

Manufacturers know this. That's part of the reason why they make several models of their running shoes. The shoe that works for me might not work for you and vice versa.

Most of us would never buy a suit off the rack without having it tailored, but we expect running shoes to work right out of the box.

If you want the optimal fit, you have to first find a good shoe for you and then you need to modify it a little for your feet. The Peg 38 is a decent shoe, but I had to modify the insert, outsole and laces to fit me. I had to change the inserts several times in the Endorphine Speed 2 and Pro 2 before I dialed in the right fit for me.

I would challenge you that 1.5% of the population is upper class. The top 10% of earners make about $175k and above. That salary is enough to get all your running gear from Tracksmith if you wanted.

My guess is the top 25% of earners in the US are Tracksmiths target demo. Something around $90-100k in salary and above.

Chris Black: We need to talk about the line between fashion versus performance. There's a little bit of a marriage of that here. Finding that line and also understanding what differentiates those two things is important.
Matt Taylor: I don't think you can set out to make a performance shoe that will catch fire on the fashion side. If it was that easy, everyone would do it. But there are some core tenets that give you the best opportunity to work well in both scenarios. For Tracksmith, we have to start with the performance. The shoe has to work. It has to work for committed runners. It has to work on short runs, long runs, fast runs, slow runs. And if we can solve for that, then bring in an aesthetic that also feels great in other settings, and with clothes other than split shorts, then we’re setting ourselves up to be in consideration.
CB: I wanted to ask about the sash. That's obviously the hero logo moment, for lack of a better term. But to me it's nice to see something like that, if you know what Tracksmith is and you're a fan of it. It's a cool application of the sash – something you guys have used since your inception.
MT: We certainly wanted that icon on the shoe. And to be honest, that's the part of the shoe that probably went through the most iterations. There were so many versions of it. Different fabrics, different angles, different placements. But in the end, we landed on frankly, the most simple, straightforward execution of it because it just works. It's timeless.