Running Brooks for 30+ years wrote:
talent wrote:
I don’t think Brooks is that popular with faster runners.
Fast runners are a tiny part of the shoe market.
Dude. Des Linden? I am a pretty decent runner in the 10k and ive worn brooks. Owned one pair of nikes but they fell apart they are cheaply made.
getit55 wrote:
rojo wrote:
The last shoe I purchased actually cost $200. So aren't we already there?
Does anyone work at a shoe company? How much labor time is required to make a single shoe in minutes? I've always wanted to know that.
My most recent 3 pair of shoes cost $250, $275 and $165 respectively. If they were made in the USA and cost double that I would do the same damn thing. After all, it's just a number. I'm saving tons by the government folks not allowing me to dine out when and where I want and without friends both old and new.
You're paying $200 for a "speciality shoe" (carbon plate/max cushion/etc) most likely. If Shoes were actually made in the USA, meaning assembled and the materials were sourced from here you would probably have to pay $200 for something like a Kinvara. Prices would significantly go up for the consumer. Your carbon plated shoes would probably double in price too.
I'm not saying more products shouldn't be made in the US, but it's not as simple as everyone thinks. Personally I don't want to pay that price point for my daily trainer every few months.
talent wrote:
I don’t think Brooks is that popular with faster runners.
I’m not a fast runner and you’re not a fast runner, but I wear shoes and I bet you do too.
It absolutely drives me nuts how these "American" companies all use cheap overseas labor and materials to make the product, yet proudly claim they are both American and how the product is designed in (insert state name). Shameful.
I've spent the last two years trying to buy running stuff from "Made in the USA" companies. While it's virtually impossible with shoes, I now have almost every part of my clothing wardrobe from running companies solely based in the US...using both labor and materials from the United States.
Shirts - GH Sports, BOA, Duckworth (Merino wool), RaceReady, Rabbit
Shorts - GH Sports, BOA, Duckworth, Race Ready, DeSoto, Rabbit
Socks - Too many to list all...Feetures, Drymax, DarnTough, etc
Headwear - Too many to list
Tracksmith has some stuff from the USA but not everything so I didn't list them.
If you haven't heard of Duckworth, check them out. Found them on a whim and now have 7 or 8 pieces from them. Outperforms my Smartwool stuff and cost is about the same. 100% USA based merino wool from fabric (Montana) to finished product (USA mills) to design (Montana)
New shoes are fun ?
forcerunner wrote:
Anyone who has worked in a running store knows how popular the Brooks Ghost (neutral) and Adrenaline (stability) are. I’d wager the Ghost was probably their most sold option in 2019 and would totally believe it was the most popular shoe for races that year as well.
Second this. I worked at one of the larger running specialty stores in MA in the past and brooks are huge. Definitely the top brand sold across all of the stores. The Letsrun crowd might go towards other brands but Brooks is definitely the top brand for hobby joggers
Rojo- read this, then read it again, and then read it again. Making shoes is a HAND MADE process. There are hundreds, if not thousands of hands that touch a shoe. Each rubber piece on the bottom of shoe is glued on by a person. Each midsole is individually taken out of a mold and placed somewhere, etc. It is all done by people. Most people do not realize this, nor as mentioned below how much physical land area factories require, and how polluting the process can be. Anyone who thinks this needs to be done in the USA is ignorant to the Footwear making process. Your $200 shoe probably features a new or 'superfoam' or a plate. Or you're gimmicked into buying something expensive. In addition to the Ghost (~$130), Brooks also offers a few $100 options- if you want a classic reliable EVA midsole with a comfortable upper, there you go. This site is primarily made up of people who probably run in the top 2% of finishers of races, or used to (primary example- Rojo). These people are a very very small margin of the running industry.
Portland Hobby Jogger wrote:
getit55 wrote:
You're paying $200 for a "speciality shoe" (carbon plate/max cushion/etc) most likely. If Shoes were actually made in the USA, meaning assembled and the materials were sourced from here you would probably have to pay $200 for something like a Kinvara. Prices would significantly go up for the consumer. Your carbon plated shoes would probably double in price too.
I'm not saying more products shouldn't be made in the US, but it's not as simple as everyone thinks. Personally I don't want to pay that price point for my daily trainer every few months.
It goes far beyond labor costs. Sourcing is the big advantage to producing products in East Asia. You need textiles, foams, adhesives, leathers, plastic bits, metal parts, etc. and they are all produced at large scales in East Asia. The tariff hit would be enormous if you imported all of those components to the USA to do final assembly. Not enough people care about "Made in the USA" to justify the costs and retail price points.
Another huge cost is tooling. Making injection molds for midsoles is not cheap and getting them milled in China is a fraction of the cost of doing it domestically. I'll spare you a lecture about environmental issues but know that your running shoes are the product of a very dirty and polluting industry.
All of what is involved in producing footwear takes a massive amount of physical infrastructure. We are talking about a company like Nike or even Brooks having to spend tens of billions to replace what already exists in Asia. If some contracted vendor already has the factory capacity in place, how do you justify the costs of building redundant facilities in America? Wall Street would take an incredibly dim view of entertaining such "patriotism". When oil becomes scarce and transportation costs threaten margins, then manufacturing will return closer to home. Plants in the United States? Nope! Mexico and Central America will become the footwear and apparel production center for our market. Viva regional trade agreements!!!
Here's a fun little factoid: does your shoe say "Made in the USA" or "American Built"? There is a big legal difference. "Made" requires a huge amount of materials sourcing and labor to be done here. "Built" only requires final assembly in the USA. So, the uppers are sourced and stitched overseas, the midsoles are injection molded outside of the U.S., and some laborers merely glue the pair together here so that the company can slap a flag on it.
rojo wrote:
getit55 wrote:
are you willing to pay prices for American made shoes? A regular priced shoe would be $200
The last shoe I purchased actually cost $200. So aren't we already there?
Does anyone work at a shoe company? How much labor time is required to make a single shoe in minutes? I've always wanted to know that.
It doesn't take minutes... it takes weeks to a month.
Midsole compounds (EVA or others) are not just merely something that exist. They need to be made, which is a complex chemical engineering process. You're paying for time in the factory for those midsole compounds to form. Then all the handmade human process beyond that.
Even going back to the 80s when I worked running retail, Brooks was an innovative force. If my memory serves, EVA development was a brooks thing, as was dual-density midsoles, their Varus Wedge, Hydro-flow cushioning, etc. I think this was back when they were in PA. We always stocked the latest models, including their graphite-plated model (Graphlex?). Yeah, graphite plate in the 80s - nothing new here. Yet, my first Brooks ever is the Hyperion Tempo. (Fits me like a glove and it’s not sloppy cushioning.). So, I guess John Walker, Ruth Wysocki, Greg Meyer, even briefly, Bill Rodgers enjoyed their shoes and sponsorship.
Hello fellow Marathon Sports employee
briswiss wrote:
forcerunner wrote:
Anyone who has worked in a running store knows how popular the Brooks Ghost (neutral) and Adrenaline (stability) are. I’d wager the Ghost was probably their most sold option in 2019 and would totally believe it was the most popular shoe for races that year as well.
Second this. I worked at one of the larger running specialty stores in MA in the past and brooks are huge. Definitely the top brand sold across all of the stores. The Letsrun crowd might go towards other brands but Brooks is definitely the top brand for hobby joggers
Same. Brooks were the number one selling shoe at the specialty store I worked for in the past. Most co workers who are casual runners also go with Brooks.
ClonedDuck wrote:
It doesn't take minutes... it takes weeks to a month.
Midsole compounds (EVA or others) are not just merely something that exist. They need to be made, which is a complex chemical engineering process. You're paying for time in the factory for those midsole compounds to form. Then all the handmade human process beyond that.
Month?
Maybe a day overall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6pls0eUD6AI race in Next% for big goal races, but I've gotten podium spots and even won overall in a pair of Brooks Launch in smaller races when the fast people don't show up.
I've run a lot of miles in Ghosts and Glycerins. The last time I needed trainers, I was able to compare Brooks, Mizuno, and NB on a treadmill and on the sidewalk. Brooks won again.
Running Brooks for 30+ years wrote:
ClonedDuck wrote:
It doesn't take minutes... it takes weeks to a month.
Midsole compounds (EVA or others) are not just merely something that exist. They need to be made, which is a complex chemical engineering process. You're paying for time in the factory for those midsole compounds to form. Then all the handmade human process beyond that.
Month?
Maybe a day overall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6pls0eUD6A
and once again- someone LRC doesn't do their research yet acts like they know everything.
You see that preformed midsole? That foam material they're securing the upper and rubber to? Do you think that just exists? That that is a natural thing? no, that needs to be made. That doesn't happen in a day.
Old Man Runner wrote:
It absolutely drives me nuts how these "American" companies all use cheap overseas labor and materials to make the product, yet proudly claim they are both American and how the product is designed in (insert state name). Shameful.
I've spent the last two years trying to buy running stuff from "Made in the USA" companies. While it's virtually impossible with shoes, I now have almost every part of my clothing wardrobe from running companies solely based in the US...using both labor and materials from the United States.
Shirts - GH Sports, BOA, Duckworth (Merino wool), RaceReady, Rabbit
Shorts - GH Sports, BOA, Duckworth, Race Ready, DeSoto, Rabbit
Socks - Too many to list all...Feetures, Drymax, DarnTough, etc
Headwear - Too many to list
Tracksmith has some stuff from the USA but not everything so I didn't list them.
If you haven't heard of Duckworth, check them out. Found them on a whim and now have 7 or 8 pieces from them. Outperforms my Smartwool stuff and cost is about the same. 100% USA based merino wool from fabric (Montana) to finished product (USA mills) to design (Montana)
These look interesting.
https://www.roadtrailrun.com/2020/02/atreyu-running-100-mile-review-2020.htmlrojo wrote:
I've never worn a Brooks shoe in my life so I'm surprised by that.
Predictable AF
LRC VIP BFD wrote:
rojo wrote:
I've never worn a Brooks shoe in my life so I'm surprised by that.
Predictable AF
Most people haven’t.
Are you this out of touch? Anyone that is in the industry or remotely follows the sport knows that Brooks is HUGE. They OWN the Hobbyjogger crowd - which makes up 90+% of the market.
oldschoollrc wrote:
Brooks are popular with a lot of runners, myself included. I run in Brooks probably 80-90% of the time, and ASICS the rest.
Key word is "runners".
ClonedDuck wrote:
Running Brooks for 30+ years wrote:
Month?
Maybe a day overall.
and once again- someone LRC doesn't do their research yet acts like they know everything.
You see that preformed midsole? That foam material they're securing the upper and rubber to? Do you think that just exists? That that is a natural thing? no, that needs to be made. That doesn't happen in a day.
I don't know everything but I know some things. I am a industrial designer by trade. Of course the tools for making the shoes need a couple of month to be build but the actual shoe is produced in a day or two, I would think. The sole is formed in a kind of injection molding process. That can't take much longer than 20-30 seconds per sole.
The new upper sock process Nike invented a couple years back should make things a lot less labor intensive. Modern running shoes also don't have any leather anymore. A lot of stripes and logos get probably laser printed on top of the sock.
The reason why Nike is so rich is because they build stuff cheaply in Asia, create some marketing around it and sell it for 10 times as much in the US. If they would build it here they would have to follow tougher labor and environmental laws. Nobody wants that. Everybody wants cheap stuff.