Tracksmith reminds me a lot of Rapha in the cycling world, which is a legit company for euro pros, but is equally represented by rich american lawyers that ride once a month but maintain a continual cycling persona. High quality stuff, very nice to lounge around in.
IMO it's a major marketing mistake to name a shoe after a male name. Unless the shoe is going to be marketed only to men. In which case, they have also lost half of their potential market.
Running shoes are meant to get dirty. This looks like a great causal shoe for the summer polo match, not something I'd really want to run through mud puddles in.
I love tracksmith stuff, but I will not be getting this shoe
1) Its just too pricey, tracksmith stuff never goes on sale. I can usually find a higher end daily trainer that retails for 160 for 100 or less on sale. But this will likely stick at 200.
2) A companies first shoe? Usually they need a little trial and error to create a great shoe.
3) I love the aesthetic as I always do with Tracksmith, but a white shoe as a daily trainer? That's gonna stay white for about 3 days.
4) Something looks weird with the upper, but this just may be the way its photographed.
Does anyone know if they are manufacturing these themselves or just slapping their name on them? When I first saw the announcement I found it hard to believe in apparel company their size would get into shoe manufacturing but maybe I'm wrong.
I would assume most of the design and manufacturing is all licensed out and they just do some visual design. I doubt they are doing enough R&d to build a shoe from scratch...
I'm excited for my buddy Matt Taylor who founded Tracksmith. From a business standpoint, I've always wondered how apparel companies that make great products make money as their stuff lasts a long time. How often would I need to replace my trackmsmith tights? Once a decade, maybe?
A shoe is something that constantly breaks down and has to be replaced. So it's a smart business move.
Note: The title of the thread was initially, "Are you excited about the Tracksmith Eliot Runner?" but I changed it to make it more descriptive and added in the link to the shoe in the first post as it only contained the picture.
I’ll 100% get a pair but probably just wear them casually.
I will never understand the resentment that Tracksmith gets on this forum. They make high qualify gear at a similar price point to Nike’s high quality stuff, but they are a small business that wants to represent the spirit of serious but amateur runners which is 100% the demo of this forum.
I wish them the best of luck and hope they continue to grow the business, but selfishly I hope they stay pretty niche. If you happen to meet someone wearing a Tracksmith jacket or tshirt, you automatically know they are pretty into running. Its a great conversation starter. If you are going to spend $90 on a polo anyway, why not buy from a company that shares and promotes your passion for running?
$200 isn’t too much for a shoe if it will do the best job of keeping me running. Shoes cost far less than injuries.
I look forward to the first reviews, but as others noted the odds of a new company hitting it out of the park on version one for anything other than a casual shoe seem low.
They already jumped the shark with their jivetown collection. The merino tops were the best running gear I've ever bought (save perhaps for janji tights with copious storage), but they're just grasping for dollars at this point. SAD!
I'm excited for my buddy Matt Taylor who founded Tracksmith. From a business standpoint, I've always wondered how apparel companies that make great products make money as their stuff lasts a long time. How often would I need to replace my trackmsmith tights? Once a decade, maybe?
A shoe is something that constantly breaks down and has to be replaced. So it's a smart business move.
Note: The title of the thread was initially, "Are you excited about the Tracksmith Eliot Runner?" but I changed it to make it more descriptive and added in the link to the shoe in the first post as it only contained the picture.
I’ll 100% get a pair but probably just wear them casually.
I will never understand the resentment that Tracksmith gets on this forum. They make high qualify gear at a similar price point to Nike’s high quality stuff, but they are a small business that wants to represent the spirit of serious but amateur runners which is 100% the demo of this forum.
I wish them the best of luck and hope they continue to grow the business, but selfishly I hope they stay pretty niche. If you happen to meet someone wearing a Tracksmith jacket or tshirt, you automatically know they are pretty into running. Its a great conversation starter. If you are going to spend $90 on a polo anyway, why not buy from a company that shares and promotes your passion for running?
I am happy to explain the resentment for Tracksmith! It's my bread and butter, especially every time they come up with a ridiculous new product or collection. I'll try to keep things concise.
I'll preface this by saying that I really do like some of their programs for amateur athlete support, as well as what Russell Dinkins does to try and save college programs and grow youth running programs. However their brand and the products they sell really rub me the wrong way. It's so ironic that they play up the celebration of amateurs and blue-collar runners, when their products are anything but blue-collar, in fact they're very inaccessible for average people. Running has always been the sport for the masses, where there are relatively less barriers to entry than other sports, but Tracksmith could not let this happen. The whole brand reeks of northeast/Ivy League elitism (which I have grown up around and have a strong distaste for, so I know it when I see it) and their target customers are the wealthiest people in the suburbs and the city. They made a lot of noise about honoring Bill Rodgers, even though realistically, someone like him in his competitive years would have thought a 100% cotton t-shirt for over $60 was the douchiest thing ever. Boston Bill was a true blue-collar runner who rummaged through a trash can for his gear. Tracksmith is also a parody of itself: their mascot is the hare from the tortoise and the hare... the hare LOSES the race because it gets too distracted by a bunch of other stupid external crap (Tracksmith).
When Tracksmith launched their "No Days Off" winter apparel collection last year, it was comical how expensive everything was. If I need a full kit from Tracksmith to brave the elements in New England, I could just buy TWO treadmills for the same cost and never need to worry about the weather. Or I could buy a round trip flight to somewhere down south for the winter for a similar price. Also "No Days Off" possibly glorifying burnout?! ...that can be a separate conversation.
The "Eliot Runner" is no better. Vintage Tracksmith move to not even show full pictures of it and say that we need to be at London or Chicago or at their Boston Frathouse in order to check it out. "Reserve your spot in line today". Gatekeeping at its finest. $200 for a pebax shoe with no plate? I can get the Nike Zoomx Invincible or a Saucony Freedom for much less, and both will have much better details in the upper, etc. Look at how thick those laces are! No information on heel-toe drop, weight, or literally anything, other than pebax followed by some relatable imagery about the feeling of packed dirt in Anywhere, New England. And I agree with another poster's point that this description creates confusion about whether it's supposed to be some sort of hybrid trail shoe.
Sure, Tracksmith is a great conversation starter. If I see someone rocking the hare I can instantly ask them if they went to Yale or Harvard, if they prefer missionary or missionary, or whether they plan to have a kid when they're 50 years old in Lexington, Concord, or Weston? People who were excited to buy the Allbirds "Dasher" will buy this shoe. It's gonna be a no for me.
Nobody here has tried the shoe, so we don't know if it's good. We do know they spent years developing it, and we know they hired experienced shoe designers from other brands to work on it.
The concept is interesting. The midsole is a pretty hard, high density foam, but it has a 10mm blown-pebax insole that provides most of the cushioning. The idea is that you can replace that insole before the rest of the shoe wears out, so you can get a springy, new-shoe feeling after a few hundred miles, without having to buy an entirely new shoe that still has plenty of life in the upper and outsole.
$200 seems like the right price point. $150-$160 has become pretty standard for a lot of trainers over the last year or two, so the Tracksmith premium is only about 35%. If the replaceable insoles mean you get more mileage out of it, then the price isn't so bad.
If it gets good reviews, I'll probably give it a shot for at least one pair. I like having at least one pair of trainers that look decent. It's nice when traveling to have running shoes that I'm not embarrassed to wear on a plane.