New Balance Cut the Heel Off the 9060 and Kept the Whole Midsole

New Balance took the heel off the 9060 and left the rest of the shoe alone. It reached the United States on July 2 as the 9060 Mule, three colorways, and sold out on New Balance’s own site. The designation buried in the product code is 9060Sv1, which is what New Balance actually calls the model, and the shoe had already been on sale in Japan since late April. Treating July 2 as the debut reads a regional drop as a global launch.

New Balance opened in Boston in 1906 as the New Balance Arch Support Company, founded by William J. Riley, and spent most of a century building a reputation on fit rather than styling. The 99X line is where that reputation turned into a shoe people bought on looks, running 990 in 1982, 991 in 2001, 992 in 2006 and 993 in 2008. The 9060 is the brand remixing its own run. New Balance calls it “a new expression of the refined style and innovation-led design of the classic 99X series,” reinterpreting those elements “with a warped sensibility inspired by the proudly futuristic, visible tech aesthetic of the Y2K era.” The specifics matter, because the feeds keep getting them wrong. The sway bars are taken from the 990 and stretched across the whole upper. The tongue logo comes from the 991 lace jewel. The diamond outsole is pulled from the classic 860. Those are the only three models New Balance names, so any lineage claim reaching for the 992 or the 993 is somebody’s inference rather than the brand’s.

The Mule keeps the expensive part. The sculpted pod midsole, with its dual-density ABZORB and SBS cushioning, carries over untouched, and so does the diamond outsole. What goes is the heel counter and the translucent CR device behind it, replaced by an adjustable strap and buckle, with the lace closure swapped for a hiking-style toggle and cable lock. The upper thins out to a looser, wider-knit mesh with synthetic leather paneling and a slimmer tongue. New Balance’s own listings put the standard 9060 at 432.4 grams and this one at 365, a 67-gram drop that no coverage of the shoe has mentioned and that says more about how it actually wears than any of the styling notes do. One warning for anyone checking the source: the Mule’s product page still carries a feature bullet describing a “traditional lace-up closure,” recycled wholesale from the standard 9060, on a backless shoe. That page is not a spec sheet.

New Balance can afford to take this kind of swing right now. The brand reported $9.2 billion in global revenue for 2025, up 19 percent, a fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth with share gained across its markets. The 9060 is one of the engines behind that, and the release cadence shows it. In 2026 alone the line has produced a 9060Z pack in February, this Mule, a 993 hybrid in May, 9060R summer colorways in June and a Night Lights pack in July. That is a silhouette being run as a franchise rather than a seasonal story. The Mule is the least conservative move in the set, which is what makes it worth watching. Cutting the back off a shoe whose entire visual argument is structure is a genuine risk, and the strap does not fully resolve it. Whether it reads as inventive or unfinished is going to come down to the colorway.

Retail is $159.99, which is exactly what New Balance charges for the full 9060. That is the pricing story here. There is no reduction for the missing heel, and the Mule is being sold as a peer to the shoe it came from rather than a summer spinoff. Set against the wider category it looks steeper still. New Balance’s own RCVRY Slide is $45, the adidas Adilette is $40, Nike’s Calm Slide is $55, and the nearest premium comparison, the Dr. Martens San Mule, is $150. Worth flagging: Sneaker Bar Detroit’s March preview carried $150 for this shoe and that number is still circulating. It was written before pricing was final.

The 9060Sv1, retailed as the 9060 Mule, released in the United States on July 2 at $159.99 through New Balance, following a Japanese release in late April at 19,800 yen. Only one colorway name is confirmed by the brand, Raincloud with Castlerock and White. The per-colorway style codes circulating in the feeds are unreliable, with at least one of them belonging to a standard lace-up 9060 from the same Summer collection, so U9060SV1 is the only code worth trusting. More New Balance and the full 9060 archive here, including the 9060R for Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.

Source: Justfreshkicks

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The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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