Independent buying guides
For runners and gym users deciding when to replace shoes and what else is worth buying. Each guide answers a single question, cites manufacturer and public health figures with check dates, and shows the cost-per-mile formula.
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Weight, volume and what gets left behind.
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Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Temperature, weather and terrain, with real numbers.
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Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Tyler Read · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Intervals, parts and what they cost.
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Photo: Tyler Read · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Standards, warnings and the checks worth doing.
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Photo: Nenad Stojkovic · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
The CDC's weekly targets are the shopping list: 150 minutes of aerobic work and 2 strength days. A $300 kit covers both, in this order.
Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Price divided by miles is the only figure that compares two pairs. At $130 over 400 miles it is 32.5 cents a mile, or $1.63 a five-mile run.
Photo: Tyler Read · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Safety
Three weeks up, one week down, at 10% a week. The arithmetic of a safe build, and what worn shoes feel like before they look worn.
Photo: Shixart1985 · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
This site earns money from advertising and, where disclosed, from affiliate links. That does not change the order of a comparison or the conclusion of a guide.
Some links on this site can earn us a commission. That does not change which product a guide recommends, and it adds nothing to your price. Advertising is not enabled on this site yet. When it is, ads will be labelled and kept visually separate from the guides.
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Adds up a kit list against a weight target and a body-weight guideline.
total = base weight + consumables (water litres x 1 kg + food days x food per day); share of body weight = total / body weight x 100
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Turns a price into a cost per use, so a dear item used often can be compared with a cheap one used rarely.
cost per use = (price + consumables over the whole life) / (uses per week x 52 x years)