Vuori Ponto Performance Jogger

In my life, the way I signal “yeah, I’m done for the day” is to climb into a comfortable pair of joggers before finding an equally comfortable place in the house to nestle into. One pair I love to wear is the Ponto Performance Jogger from Vuori.

You’ve likely seen the brand marketed all over, they do a good job of that, and if you know what you are getting into, the joggers can fill a nice niche for you.

Materials

The Ponto is made from Vuori’s ‘DreamKnit ’ fabric which is a fancy branding of: 89% Recycled Polyester, 11% Elastane. It feels exactly how that composition sounds: insanely soft with a lot of 4-way stretch. It has a slight brushing to the fabric to increase the softness.

These are not heavyweight joggers though. The material is about as thick as a standard polo shirt might be, and offers not much in the way of warmth. It’s a solid offering for a jogger that is focusing on comfort.

Fit & Style

This is a pretty standard jogger cut, with a strong taper to the ankles and a narrow calf. The thigh area fits me well, but that’s rarely an issue I run into. The waistband is comfortable and the drawstring is needed as the elastic isn’t overly strong.

Both pockets have small zippers which help to keep rather clean lines overall when they are zipped shut. The main issue with the fit is the lack of heft in the fabric means that anything behind the material is easily telegraphed through the material. That’s not to say you can see through them, but you can make out the shapes of say things in your pockets, pretty readily. Because of that, at least for me and a few other people I know who own these, they are strictly ‘in the house with no guest’ type of pants. This works out as this isn’t a style I would want to wear outside the home to begin with.

I will say that Vuori needs a slightly longer length in these, they are at the edge of wearability for me.

Performance

There’s two primary performance claims here: ‘ultra-comfort’ and moisture wicking. I’ll tackle those plus durability individually:

‘Ultra-comfort’: I would be outright lying if I were to disagree with this. These are indeed ultra comfortable to wear. They move really well, and they are very soft. They never heat you up, but they will help dash a slight chill.

Moisture Wicking: I am rather dubious of this. It’s not that these don’t wick moisture, it’s that I don’t think they do it well. They can and do get damp if you are resting a non-permeable item on your lap (laptops, iPads, etc) and that feels pretty gross. When they get wet they don’t dry slow, but they also don’t dry that fast. Overall this is average at best.

Durability: these have held up well in the year I have owned them. The material face has a touch of pilling, but I also wash them right-side-out instead of inside-out as the instructions indicate. Perhaps that would keep this at bay, but generally it’s not enough to bother me.

The performance you should expect from these is purely comfort. Anything else is just extra, but shouldn’t be expected. I do find the strength of the waistband to be very welcoming, even though you need to use the drawstring, it means that the pants don’t feel like they are trying to squeeze you to death.

Overall

As I mentioned at the outset: I am a big fan of these. Not because they are a performance jogger, but because they are the most comfortable jogger I’ve tried. I love wearing these, and the $98 price tag doesn’t bother me that much, though I do think they are an instant buy if you can snag them at a discount.