Nike Air Pegasus 83 Premium Review

 I was honestly surprised to see the Nike Air Pegasus 83 Premium pop up on SNKRS a few weeks ago. Retro running shoes don’t catch people’s interest like retro basketball, training or Jordan product. But I’m glad someone at Nike made this happen. The shoe appeared to be a 1:1 or remastered version of the original Nike Pegasus that, you guessed it, originally released in 1983. Retro running is a look I love for casual wear so I was interested. I turned on my SNKRS notifications and hoped that these wouldn’t sell out in a millisecond.

Luckily, I managed to grab a pair. And though they’re sold out on Nike US, a brief look at other geographies such as England and Canada showed me in stock pairs of both initial colorways. I’m also betting new colorways will arrive soon. So let’s talk retro Pegasus.

Fit

The Nike Air Pegasus 83 Premium runs a little long. But I don’t recommend going up a half size because the shoe is narrow at both the midfoot and heel. Given the materials used on the Patta x Nike Air Max 1, the midfoot and heel will widen somewhat once broken in. Will they widen enough to justify going a half size down? I don’t think so. Luckily, the toe box widens nicely (as good running shoes should) so your forefoot will feel great from the first wear.

Materials

The materials of the Nike Air Pegasus 83 Premium are the star of the show. They’re more premium than I expected for $100 USD. The leather used for the Swoosh logo, heel tab and inner ankle collar is fairly thick and feels good. The suede used on the toecap, eyestays and heel is also high quality. Finally, the nylon material used on the majority of the upper feels like it’s relatively high end nylon. Again, I expected lesser materials at this price point and was glad my low expectations were easily surpassed.

Plus, in addition to the upper materials, the insole is lined with leather to offer a more premium feel. And the outsole features a very thick old school rubber with a big square waffle pattern. Again, more than I expected for the price.

Cushion

The Nike Air Pegasus 83 Premium features an EVA midsole with an Air-Wedge in the heel. Well, I don’t really know if it looks the same as the original Air-Wedge, but I do know there’s encapsulated Nike Air in the heel. And again, knowing the cushioning tech specs going in, I didn’t expect it to be that comfortable. But surprisingly, wearing the Pegasus 83 all day is 100% possible. The EVA is softer than I expected and the heel has the tell tale squish of an encapsulated air unit. One of my go to casual shoes right now is the remastered Nike Air Max 2021. Nike did a great job making the new Air Max 3 truly comfortable and they’ve done it again with the Nike Air Pegasus 83. I wish I could high five whoever at Nike is taking the time and care to make these retro runners and trainers as comfortable as possible. It makes a huge difference in the usefulness of the end product.

Overall

Comfort and high end materials make it easy to recommend buying the Nike Air Pegasus 83 Premium. At $100, you get more than you pay for (a rarity in today’s sneaker industry). You also get to rock the Mark Parker designed original Nike Pegasus in all it’s glory. And that’s just freaking cool.

If you’re interested in the storied history of the air jordan line, you should read a great in-depth article on the origins of the Nike Pegasus on the Mr Porter website.