Review: Skechers GoRun Ride 9

I'm very excited to review the Skechers GoRun Ride 9 today. Skechers Singapore has kindly provided me a pair to review at no cost. The opinions in this review are my own.

I've been fortunate enough to test the GoRun Ride 7 and 8 in recent years, with Roadtrailrun.

See links here:

Skechers GoRun Ride 8

Skechers GoRun Ride 7

The Skechers GoRun Ride 9 actually released in the USA sometime last year, but took a while to finally reach retail outlets in Singapore. 

Before we dive into the review of the Ride 9, let's do a quick recap on the evolution of this shoe over the past few years. The Ride 7 was a resounding success for Skechers. Sporting a very soft and springy Flight Gen midsole, the shoe was incredibly forgiving and lively to run in, and a really like all-round daily trainer for many people. Personally, I found the fit to be a bit too roomy, it could have benefited from a snugger more performance-oriented fit. Enter the Ride 8. Ride 8 sported a whole new Hyperburst midsole, with a snugger more supportive upper. The end result somehow came up a little bit short of the sum of the parts here. Hyperburst is good, really good. but the overall geometry and stack made the shoe feel a little awkward in transitioning for some people, and the upper, while very nice and snug, felt warm and didn't work particularly well in Singapore weather. I scored the Ride 8 very highly in my review, because i like how the shoe rides, but it starts to feel a little hot under the hood as the miles tick on, which is a shame. (Incidentally, Skechers has a version of the Ride 8 called the Ride 8 Flow, which seems to have a more ventilated upper, but I've not had the chance to test it out.)

Finally, we arrive at the Skechers GoRun Ride 9. 

Here is a brief summary of the statistics for the various Ride models:

Ride 7: 24mm/30mm stack. 6mm drop. 262g / 9.24oz (men's US9.0)

Ride 8: 27mm/33mm stack. 6mm drop. 263g / 9.3oz (men's US9.0)

Ride 9: 28mm/34mm stack. 6mm drop. 238g / 8.4oz (men's US9.0)

What's immediately evident here is a big drop in weight for the shoes, while preserving the stack height. Judging from the substantial outsole rubber, it would appear that the weight loss has all come from the upper of the shoe, which is quite remarkable. 

Upper:

The upper uses a dual layer engineered mesh, here, and it is very obviously more breathable than the denser mesh used in the GoRun Ride 8. There is an outer layer that has larger perforations, and an inner layer when smaller and more numerous perforations. The build of the upper is relatively straight forward. There is an internal toe bumper to maintain toe box volume, but there is already enough inherent stiffness in the mesh to hold up the shape of the shoe. There are 5 rows of eyelets in the shoe, on the low side for performance shoes, but seems to be a common theme for Skechers trainers. The tongue is lightly padded with a suede pull section, and does a good job of distributing lace pressure over the foot, though in truth this is one of those shoes where you can get away with very little lace tension and still achieve good lockdown. The heel counter is semi-rigid and is fairly tradition in shape and height, with adequate padding to secure the heel quite nicely. I used the shoe with a variety of sock thicknesses and all seem to work fine with this shoe. There rear is finished off with a heel loop to pull on to get the shoe on, but in truth it's not something I bothered to use. Overall, this upper works well in Singapore heat and I did not experience any heat build-up in the shoes during my runs. In terms of volume, I'd say it sits in the middle between the Ride 7 and 8, and is marginally snugger than the Skechers MaxRoad 5. (reviewed here under Roadtrailrun) 

Midsole:

The midsole sculpting is different from what we had in the Ride 8, but it's not really clear if there's any big difference in the ride characteristics here, given the near identical stack and geometry of the Ride 8 and 9. It seems pretty clear by now that the firmness of Hyperburst can be tuned to give a relatively soft feel a la Razor family, or a relatively stable and firm feel as seen in the Speed Elite and Speed Freek. As far as I can tell, the foam here tends to ride more akin that of the Razor with a more forgiving springy underfoot feel. 

Outsole:

The Outsole here is a big departure from that of the Ride 8. You can see from the pictures here the difference in terms of coverage. What is not so obvious is the thickness of the rubber. There is much more rubber on the Ride 9 outsole than on the Ride8 (or Ride 7 for that matter). I'd argue that the extra 1mm stack from Ride 8 to 9 can be completely attributed to the outsole difference. Skechers continues to use GoodYear rubber for the outsole, which has proven surprisingly resilient so no issues there. If anything, the more traditional gridded texture of the outsole make the Ride 9 perform a little better on wet surfaces. One thing i want to point out is how there are now horizontal flex grooves across the midfoot and forefoot created by the spaces of exposed midsole. This really helps the shoe to flex more naturally now compared to how the Ride 8 performs. There are pros and cons here, and I will discuss this under the Ride section.

Ride:

The Ride 9 has the familiar springy underfoot feel of its predecessor, the Ride 8. It's not quite as pillowy soft as the Ride 7, but a denser, more solid type of bounce. I think people who have used the Ride 8 before will notice the improved forefoot flexibility and more natural transition of the Ride 9, as well as the more breathable upper. The improved forefoot flex makes the shoe smoother at slower paces, but also makes you work a little harder to pick the pace up. The lighter package makes it easier to do injections of pace  now, and for these you don't really notice the forefoot flex much, but there is that middle ground for me, where you want to hold a moderate effort, where I found myself missing that extra bit of snappiness that the Ride 8 has through the toe box. The shoe actually reminds me a lot of another ride, the Saucony Ride 14. Very similar sort of transition and vibration-dampening here, but softer and lighter. I see this as a versatile shoe to keep in your rotation. It works well for easy runs where you still get a fairly stable and predictable ride, but with more modern day bounce to the underfoot feel. It can handle some basic speed work, but you probably want a more dedicated workout shoe for those runs. The Skechers GoRun Ride 9 retails at a very competitive S$169, but the performance puts it on par with many other $200 shoes on the market, and if you have not tried Skechers running shoes before, the Ride 9 will be a very nice way to experience they Hyperburst midsole technology without breaking the bank. 

The new Skechers GOrun technical running shoes are available from 15 December 2021 at selected Skechers concept and performance stores, including Skechers Bugis Junction (Performance), 313@somerset, ION Orchard, Jem, Jewel Changi Airport and Northpoint City, and online via https://www.skechers.com.sg, Shopee and Lazada.