Light weight road shoe

[lspeedguy]

Haven't bought road shoes in awhile , currently have Shimano with Look cleats (17 years old) - they feel heavy now and was wondering if there are much lighter shoes available these days , recommendations appreciated .

 

[BrianNystrom]

There are some really featherweight shoes on the market now, but be prepared for sticker shock. You can easily drop $400-$500 or more on the lightest road slippers. Keep in mind that while light weight is nice, fit is way more important. In more than 45 years of pedaling, I can honestly say that I have never noticed the weight of my shoes, but I sure as heck noticed whenever my feet hurt! I definitely prefer light bikes, but when it comes to shoes, fit and function are my primary concerns.

 

[Froze]

Why? there is no performance gain from using those, and if there is it's so infinitely small you would never remotely know it. Most of this weight **** and aero **** is pure nonsense, look a the average speeds of the Tour De France sometime, from the late 70's till 2016 there has only been a 1 1/2 mph increase while racing distances have declined till now! so really the technology we have to pay so dearly for is useless and what brought the speeds up was shortening the race distance. There is a spike you will see when you research that, that happened when Lance Armstrong was racing, when about 95% of the peloton were doping, so it was the doping that increased the speed, once that was virtually stopped the speeds came back down.

So you can spend money up the wazoo for stuff like lightweight shoes but you will never get the results you seek. If you stay in the middle of the road you'll be fine.

 

[Jesica Miller]

Is a road shoe really necessary for road biking? Does it have any kind of advantage?

 

[Froze]

You can use a road shoe on any bike, it's just that it's made particularly for a road bike and not so much for a mtb for example, but one could use a road shoe on a mountain bike as long as you don't have to dismount the bike go over rocks and mud etc.

You can also use a non cycling shoe IF your pedal has two sides, one for cleat style shoe and the other for flat shoe with no cleat.

I actually use a mtb pedal on one of my road bikes, why? because I like to go places and sometimes walk around when I get there, so I wear mtb shoes since they're more walkable. There is no power difference between using a mtb shoe and pedal vs a road bike shoe and pedal as long as your not racing.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

There is no power difference between using a mtb shoe and pedal vs a road bike shoe and pedal as long as your not racing.

I agree I think most racers would want a road pedal and shoes while racing. But what really surprised me one day on a ride. I rode with a group of racers up a mountain road. OK, I'm the biggest guy at 230 pounds riding with some smaller guys of 150'ish. 6 of us!

One guy is a well known winning local racer. Older now but won masters, everything, great guy too!

We rode about 15 miles to get to the mountain road (Glendora Mtn Rd). 8 mile climb with 2300 ft, I believe 6% average. The champ rolled away from most of us. One guy about 200 faded half way up. 3/4 of the way up, I was going back and forth with the other guys.

I ended up dropping the guys and got to the top second rider, only to the champ. He asked if I raced. Nope, I just like to ride at my schedule and for fun. He said at my size, climbing like that, I should race. Nah, I'm just a fun recreational ride, heck, I even use MTB shoes on my roadie.

Surprisingly, he lifted his foot and asked,"what does this look like? I use MTB shoes as well!".

Heck the dude won crits, road races, the works. Using MTB shoes!

I used to wonder if I was missing something but once he showed me his shoes, I never looked back and have been using MTB shoes on my roadie since 1996.

But I agree with Froze overall. I have had people tell me I need lighter shoes, wheels, need to slam my stem but on rides, they can't keep up or have to suck my wheel for the most part. Now, put me in training mode, drop 50 pounds and actually train as I have a few times leading up to timed events, the weight of a wheel, shoe, or heavy sun screen won't slow me down a bit.

People want to buy speed, that is cool if you have the money. But as many have said, I think it's just the cool factor!

 

[Froze]

Man, you must be a fast rider! I use to be fast, but that was a million years ago, but my problem is I now live in an area where it gets cold for 6 months out of the year and I hate riding in the cold, I also hate the turbo trainer, so I don't ride as consistently as I know I should, but such is life. I also have to be careful that I don't burn out, I did that after 13 years of racing, and I had a difficult time trying to even ride the bike after I quit racing! Eventually, I got back on it but I wasn't pushing myself like I used to, just riding for the fun of it rather than the work of it. I wanted to go pro when I was racing but I simply didn't have the genetics to make it to that level, I got as far as CAT 3 but only did so so at that level.

Anyway, the only thing you have to watch out for with mtb shoes is that they are built so that they cool the feet well enough, and that they are stiff enough, all of the lower end shoes are too flexy, more so than a dedicated lower end road shoe. I use Speed Play Frogs on my road bike, but due to age and arthritis in my one foot I may have to get new pedals with a wider base, I'm still trying to figure out how to get the pain level down on long rides, I'm hoping to keep the pedals but that might not be possible. The touring bike I use cheap Shimano A530 mtb pedals, they work fine. On my commuter I use...are you ready for this one? I use Suntour Superbe pedals! I don't mind straps, others hate them, but if done right they're fine.