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Comment by acomjean | Hacker News Reader

I always remember when I was young they released sneakers with a built in pump, to help them fit better.(inflatable bladder inside the shoe) I always wanted to try those out…

It was different.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reebok_Pump

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Those were the must have shoes when I was growing up in the early 90's. For some reason we thought they would help us play basketball better. I still remember showing up to school with a pair on and all of my friends being impressed.

I fought so hard until my dad bought me a pair. Damn I thought that maybe once the bullying would stop in school.

I still wore the wrong jeans and shirts, though.

Nothing like a pair of shoes conjuring up memories.

I picked up a pair of Shaq shoes when I was in middle school for that reason. Weirdly it did help. I remember a kid that would pick on me stopped because he thought my shoes were cool. Everyone thought they had to have been really expensive too (like Jordan shoes), but they weren't. I had found them at some discount retailer. I'm not even sure if they were legit, but they said Shaq and they looked cool. Eventually someone else found the shoes and brought up that they were inexpensive shoes, but by that time I'd already moved on to a different pair of shoes.

They were probably legit and intentionally more affordable: https://www.blackbusiness.com/2016/07/shaq-affordable-shoes-...

I too had the original Shaq Rebook pumps. Did you pick up one of these?

https://i.imgur.com/MLtw137.jpg

Another gimmick to mess around with. The instant inflation tool (has a CO2 cartridge in it). Circa 1992 it seemed cool as a young kid, fun to mess with for a couple of weeks during school - up to the point where you had to buy the replacement cartridges for something entirely unnecessary.

That was back when Nike and Reebok were actually in competition.

Here's an interesting read about it: https://www.retaildive.com/news/reebok-was-meant-to-be-a-nik...

I didn't have the original pumps, but I wanted a pair growing up. In '05 or '06 when they did a re-release I got a pair of the Pump 2.0s.

Never meet your heroes. Maybe the 2.0s were a different design, but they were incredibly disappointing. The pump pretty much didn't do anything. You could pump them while wearing them and not feel anything.

I remember those shoes. I bought one pair of Yao Ming signature shoes with that pump on. Those were nice, the only issue was that they had holes on the sole. I think the holes were designed for better ventilation and keeping your feet cool and dry, but the reality is if I walked on some water/rain my feet would immediately get wet.

Just to preface this was I too was young when these came out but for some reason I never thought this was about making the shoes fit better...I thought the pump was there to make you JUMP higher.

I had them. They were sold at Aldi for some reason, while they were still popular shoes. Didn't dislike them but the pump gimmick wore off quickly...

I had one of those pairs. Never used it. But apparently it was targeted at basketball players. I don’t play.

I had a pair. They didn't fit any better than shoes tightened with laces.

Dee Brown!

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