[LOCAL] Pittsburgh, PA: specialty running stores?

[David Winters]

Fleet Feet Sports has a location just south of Pittsburgh (in Bethel Park), and the chain seems to
have a pretty good reputation in RR based on a groups.google search.

There's another place, Elite Runners and Walkers, located in Robinson Township.

Does anyone have any experience with either place, or can anyone recommend any other places whose
employees know about running and about feet? Thanks.

D.

[Karl Schendel]

In article <m3n0izii3j.fsf@GIRI.INTRO.CS.CMU.EDU>, David Winters
<winters+usenet@giri.intro.cs.cmu.edu> wrote:

> Fleet Feet Sports has a location just south of Pittsburgh ....
>
> There's another place, Elite Runners and Walkers, located in Robinson Township.
>
> Does anyone have any experience with either place, or can anyone recommend any other places whose
> employees know about running and about feet? Thanks.

Haven't been to Fleet Feet. I've been to Elite once or twice with reasonably good results. I
think the one time I was looking for shoes, though, I was interested in trying the then-latest
Saucony Hurricane and they didn't have any. They did seem to know more than your average
mall-drooler though.

Karl

[Harold D Walls]

On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, David Winters wrote:

>
> Fleet Feet Sports has a location just south of Pittsburgh (in Bethel Park), and the chain seems to
> have a pretty good reputation in RR based on a groups.google search.
>
> There's another place, Elite Runners and Walkers, located in Robinson Township.
>
> Does anyone have any experience with either place, or can anyone recommend any other places whose
> employees know about running and about feet? Thanks.

I've been to Fleet Feet. The store is small, but they seemed to have a good selection of shoes. They
have a treadmill and video camera set up in the store, and they let me run on the sidewalk outside
the store before I purchased anything. They seemed to steer me towards the most expensive shoe they
could. Being a generally cynical bastard, I was epecting this, and was willing to part with big
bucks - which I did. I'd say they did a careful analysis and spent plenty of time. They also
insisted that I try on at least two or three pairs before making a choice.

I've never been to the Elite Runners store, but I've picked up a couple pairs of racing flats from
their booth at the marathon expo. Elite Runners and Walkers doesn't carry Adidas shoes (at least,
they didn't 2 or 3 years ago). No complaints.

My experience with both establishments, if limited, has been positive; so I would recommend either
of them. In general, I think the whole shoe technology game is not too useful. Buy what feels good,
and you'll be OK. But you probably will get the best selection and advice in at FF and Elite. I'd
say it's worth the trip to one of the two.

-- Harold

[Ed Prochak]

Look they both suck. Now shut the hell up.
--
Ed Prochak running: http://www.faqs.org/fags/running-faq/ family:
http://web.magicinterface.cum/~collins
--
"Two roads diverged in a wood and I I took a ****." robert "crackhead" frost

[David Winters]

Harold D Walls <hwalls@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

> On Wed, 9 Apr 2003, David Winters wrote:
>
> >
> > Fleet Feet Sports has a location just south of Pittsburgh (in Bethel Park), and the chain seems
> > to have a pretty good reputation in RR based on a groups.google search.
> >
> > There's another place, Elite Runners and Walkers, located in Robinson Township.
> >
> > Does anyone have any experience with either place, or can anyone recommend any other places
> > whose employees know about running and about feet? Thanks.
>
> I've been to Fleet Feet. The store is small, but they seemed to have a good selection of shoes.
> They have a treadmill and video camera set up in the store, and they let me run on the sidewalk
> outside the store before I purchased anything. They seemed to steer me towards the most expensive
> shoe they could. Being a generally cynical bastard, I was epecting this, and was willing to part
> with big bucks - which I did. I'd say they did a careful analysis and spent plenty of time. They
> also insisted that I try on at least two or three pairs before making a choice.

Thanks to both you and Karl for the responses. I went to Fleet Feet yesterday, as a friend's
familiar with Bethel Park and neither of us know much about Robinson.

I don't know if it was the owner, a manager, or a senior employee helping me, but she was great.
Took me through the whole fitting deal, had me try on at least a half-dozen pairs. I was expecting
to get steered toward the most expensive stuff on the wall, and I would have paid it, but it came
down to choosing between a mid-range Saucony pair and a sale-priced NB pair. The latter felt just
slightly better so I went with it, plus I've had good luck with NB crosstrainers.

D.

> I've never been to the Elite Runners store, but I've picked up a couple pairs of racing flats from
> their booth at the marathon expo. Elite Runners and Walkers doesn't carry Adidas shoes (at least,
> they didn't 2 or 3 years ago). No complaints.
>
> My experience with both establishments, if limited, has been positive; so I would recommend either
> of them. In general, I think the whole shoe technology game is not too useful. Buy what feels
> good, and you'll be OK. But you probably will get the best selection and advice in at FF and
> Elite. I'd say it's worth the trip to one of the two.
>
> -- Harold