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Saucony Ride 17: first impressions
• List price: $140 (US) / £135 (UK)
• Gender specification: Men’s and women’s
• Sizes: Men's 7-15 US; women's 5-8 US; regular and wide fit available
• Category: Neutral, daily trainer
• Stack height: 37mm
• Drop: 8mm
• Weight (per shoe): Men's 9.9oz (282g); women's: 8.4oz (238g)
• Colors: Men's: yellow, black, gray and more; women's: pink, black, blue and more
• Best use: Road running
The Saucony Ride 17, released in late 2023, is a versatile, well balanced road shoe that's well suited to everyday training over a wide range of distances, from 5k up. I've been using it for marathon training for several months and found it consistently comfortable for intervals, tempo sessions, and long weekend runs alike.
The biggest change from the Ride 16 is the midsole, which now features a generous helping of Saucony's springy PRRRUN+ foam, and a smooth, soft PRRRUN sockliner that's almost satiny to the touch. The result is a more comfortable shoe that's a little heavier than its sibling the Triumph 21, but with more bounce.
The upper is made from a new engineered mesh, with particularly larger perforations on the sides for ventilation. These help keep you cool in warm conditions (such as sweaty treadmill sessions) and don't seem to allow ingress of dirt and grit, though they do let in a lot (and I mean a lot) of water if you're unlucky enough to step in a puddle. This isn't the right shoe to wear after a downpour, though it cleans up well and it dries out very quickly.
Rather than a conventional lacing system, the Ride 17 features a narrow strip of webbing that's sewn to the upper using a reinforced stitch, which the laces thread through. The stitching is very durable, but the webbing will wear through with time, and may be the weakest part of the whole shoe (more on that later).
The gusseted tongue is lightly padded, but offers enough cushioning to protect your metatarsals when putting in long miles. It's also very wide, which helps prevent it shifting while you run. The collar also features a moderate amount of padding and sits nice and high, with a convenient pull tab.
There's a good coverage of rubber on the outsole, and it's thoughtfully placed to give plenty of grip and protection as your foot rolls, whether you're a heel or forefoot striker. There's good protection on the toe, which I always appreciate in an everyday shoe.
This is a neutral shoe, with an 8mm heel drop. If you're looking for something with more motion control, take a look at the stability-focused Saucony Guide 17 instead.
Saucony Ride 17: on the road
I've put over 100 miles into the Saucony Ride 17 so far, using it as my regular marathon training shoe on a combination of gravel and asphalt, and I'm impressed by both its comfort and durability.
The shoe fits pretty much true to size (if you're somewhere in between sizes then I'd recommend opting for the larger one), and comes in regular and wide options, which is always good to see.
I'm starting to see a little wear on the outsole rubber, on the heel specifically, but less than I'd expected considering how much running I've been doing on rough canal paths. The rubber is clearly well positioned to provide traction and protection without adding unnecessary weight.
More concerningly, the right shoe is showing significant fraying around one of the 'eyelets', and I suspect this will be the first part of the shoe to fail. At the time of writing, the lace has worn about a third of the way through the webbing. My colleague Nick Harris-Fry at at Coach reported the webbing snapping when he over-tightened the laces, so I've been mindful to avoid that, but there's still damage.
That aside, I'm thoroughly enjoying the Ride 17, and hope the lacing system won't fail me mid-run. It's an extremely comfortable shoe, with just the right amount of cushioning; soft enough to provide a little welcome bounce, but not enough to feel unstable at low speeds.
