When Jim Wyker greeted me he slipped a pair of 2010 Aerlite S.B.S. on my feet and they felt relaxed and comfortable, so good they felt like they were a custom shoe. I was ready to ride.

The reason Northwave’s feel so comfy right out of the box might be partially because the insole is built on a wood foundation. Wood might not seem like an exotic material at first, and don’t worry the outsole is a well-ventilated Carbon epoxy, but wood is the way expensive dress shoes are made.

Then I met Northwave’s other heads of state. Desiree Moore and John McKone stopped and chatted for a while. John elaborated on the benefits of wood, “It’s an insulator to heat and road noise. You know what I mean by road noise don’t you?”

At first I thought I he was referring to dampening vibrations and shock transmitted by the pedals and cranks. But John went on to explain that the wood in Northwave shoes help create a quieter riding experience as well. I’ve never ridden shoes with wood insoles so I wonder what I’m missing.

Northwave’s wood insole is completely natural. The layers of wood are worked, thermoformed at high temperatures and treated with special bonding agents to protect the insole from sweat and water. The structure is broken down into two sections: a more flexible portion that adapts to the shape of your foot and a stiffer core to connect power transmission to the bike.

Northwave builds its shoes from a BioMap concept that analyzes how the body functions during physical activity. So the wood insoles are designed to transmit power directly to the pedals without wasting any energy.

But there is more to a pair of Northwave’s than just the wood intersole. Footbeds, the ventilated outsole, the enclosure and the Ultra Y heel system all work in congress as a complete design.

Check back with Cycling Shoes Online for a complete review.

Colors: black, blue and white
Sizes: 39-48, half sizes 39.5-45.5

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New cycling shoes and products will focus on customization like never before. If you’re going to buy a new pair of shoes in the coming year you can expect to have a plethora of cool styles to choose from. Needless to say the decision will be hard to make.

We’re gathering our notes now and will be bringing you the headliners soon. Until then consider these kicks a tease.

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Armstrong wore silver Nike mountain bike shoes and black socks. This was a stark contrast to Lance’s normal choice to wear black shoes like he did throughout the Tour de France. His shoes stood out against his black Mellow Johnny’s racing kit.

Armstrong was slowed by not only his flat tire, but also from huge crowds of spectators lining the streets of Leadville, Colorado making his way to the famed red carpet finishing line.

Lance Armstrong dethroned six-time defending champion Dave Wiens on Saturday, winning in 6 hours, 28 minutes, 50 seconds. “This year, Lance is coming off the Tour (de France). Last year, Lance was coming off the couch,” joked Wiens, who seemed pleased with his second placed finish. At the races mid-way point at the peak of the Columbine climb Armstrong already had 10 minutes into his rival. Wiens had set the previous record of 6:45:45 – for many years the course record was set at 7 hours 15 minutes. Weins had beaten the seven-time Tour de France winner by nearly two minutes in 2008. That was before Armstrong began training in earnest for his return to the Tour this year.

These little jumpers are a classic case of when not to judge a shoe by its cover. They do look slightly quirky – even a funny. The time saved on styling definitely went into putting together a well thought-out rider.

There is a raised and padded inner ankle protector and a protective pad over the laces to keep water, mud and rocks from beating you up.

Grip

Shimano is also using an exciting new material for the outsole. Vibram, an Italitan sole company long used in hiking boots, partnered with Shimano to produce the IdroGrip – a super sticky compound that secures riders on wet rocks, mud and matted grass as well as their pedals. IdroGrip was derived from Vibram’s expertise manufacturing climbing soles.

On the bike, the grip and feel contact to the pedals is second only to FiveTen Impact 2 Low and Freerider shoes – which is quite an accomplishment. They cost about ten bucks more than FiveTen’s, but they might perform longer. Shimano might be the answer to the wet rainforests of the North Country, eh?

Tunability

In addition to that sticky outsole, shoe stiffness can be altered with two different inserts slid in under the insole. I decided that the more flexible insert, or none at all, gave the best pedal control. However if you are headed to the groomies at the jump park and want some speed you can feel a power increase with the stiffer insert.

Verdict

While Shimano’s AM40s are very supple and offer armored shield protection from flying debris and rocks, but maybe not from your friend’s jokes and laughs.

Sizes: 36 – 48, whole sizes
Weight: 837 grams (size 40)
Price: about $100-$110 online

That’s why I primarily pack my toe warmers when I’m riding in the winter months. They are the perfect compromise and made from the same water resistant neoprene that full booties are made. They are easier to get over your cleat and on your foot too.

One ride in these and you’ll realize that covering the mesh vents on the front of your cycling shoes are usually all you need. By blocking the wind chill from your toes you can stay cozy and ride longer in chilly and freezing temperatures.

If you plan on riding in wet, rainy or snowy conditions then get yourself some full shoe covers, but buy those as an after thought. Chances are you’ll use the full boots less, I recommend getting a pair of toe covers first.

Pearl Izumi and Louis Garneau both make excellent pairs. But I’ve also seen great ones from Craft and Castelli too. All four companies make great cycling apparel.

They will probably come in different sizes too, a small/medium for smaller feet and a large/x-large for sizes over 42. My feet are a 46 but the L/XL always fit fine.

You can usually walk around in them too but when they get caked with snow and road grime they’re less fun to take off. Still that’s being nit-picky and a small price to pay for a better attitude at the end of a chilly ride. Besides the full booties would only get dirtier anyway.

Unless you ride in a climate where the roads constantly remain wet in the winter months you’ll find toe booties go on quicker, easier and still do the trick.

Sidi has a new top of the line mountain bike shoe. This swashbuckling little number might be the sure thing to help you ride over the rainbow. Every year there is one good cycling product that turns heads, for 2009 Sidi has that title with a colorful engine that can, will, and with brilliance. We are pleased to bring you the new extreme in bike shoe porn. Look at all that red!

While I haven’t gotten my hands on a pair yet I do suspect these to make a splash at the races this summer.
From fashion runway to trail, the new dazzling color ignites your primal need to ride from the ground up.  Sidi’s tested nylon-wrapped carbon sole from heel to toe on the bottom brings the spectacle in line with high performance. It should prove to be the prized closet apparel for weekend warriors and seasoned racers alike.

Unlike the Ergo 2 road shoes, this new era of the Dragon sports a high-shine Vernice patent leather upper that is soft and pliable, but still tough enough for any granite baby-head rock. In usual Sidi style I expect these to fit like a glove, no a sock, no… a Sidi.

The closure is tasteful and traditional. A caliper buckle locks in two ways and designed to easily adjust mid-ride. They are also still using a monofilament line and ratchet system that will adjust the shoe’s upper to desired snugness.

Sizes range from 39 to 48.  Prices are rumored to be around $520 at your local bike shop, or around $400 from online retailers. If Keith Richards was a mountain biker, this would be his shoe.

Feed your lust, for the color of speed.

The first pair of clipless shoes I owned were made by Shimano. They had a grey canvas Cordura upper, shoestring laces, a rubber sole that flexed over the pedal as I rode. They were a recreational level shoe and no matter how tightly I tied the laces the first sign of water would loosen them up from around my foot. If it was a full-on water crossing that dunked my entire foot, the upper would soak it up like a sponge causing my power to be even further depleted.

That was 14 years ago, and Shimano shoes have gone through a plethora of changes. Now my latest pair of Shimano shoes are their top-of-the-line, fully customizable SH-M300. These state-of-the-art kicks reflect all their newfangled technology in their appearance. They look like space shoes with silver and sparkle on from heel to toe.

flashy, high-end, off-road

What makes these so pricey is they are fully bakeable and require your local bike shop to buy an easy-bake oven that looks like a small R2D2 robot in the corner of their shoe section. The result is a form-fitting shoe that seamlessly puts you in-line with every pedal stroke.

The whole experience is romantic and makes you feel like you are buying something totally cool and special. Rarely does buying a pair of shoes become quite a process like this one. You take a seat and the baby-blue shoe oven is wheeled out like a golf bag beside you. The salesman preheats the oven and places the first shoe inside for a few minutes so that it becomes soft and pliable. Then the shoe goes on your foot and a plastic bag is fastened to your leg with a rubberband. Then a vacuum tube attachment sucks all the air out of the shoe bringing it as close to your foot as possible. This is how the custom process works.

Then after it’s all done and the shoes are cooled off. You’re ready to ride. No overnight waiting, they’re ready to go.

Hockey skates these are not; there is less ankle support than I expected, and it wasn’t until after my first ride how much I appreciate a little ankle protection from my mountain bike shoes. After my first few rides my ankles were bruised and cut-up from impacts with brush, rocks and my own chainstays.

For some reason I had a really hard time getting into my pedals with these shoes. I can’t say why exactly but it may have been one too many beers the night before, or it’s the lack of rugged cleat knobs on the bottom. I never could really tell where my toe was, or where the ball of my foot was from ground to pedal. It was and remains the oddest experience with these shoes. I think Shimano really strived to make keep the shoe’s weight to a minimum and in doing so they cut out a lot of the traction on the bottom of the sole.

However once in the pedals, the shoes were stiff and agile. They gave me great connection to my bike and rode marvelously.

The lack of cleats on the bottom made these shoes an unforgiving ride anywhere except Southern California. My rides elsewhere where there were rocky, muddy, or steep conditions suffered. It was annoying getting dropped by my buddies in the Midwest even though I was wearing some pretty fancy shoes.

These problems with the shoes mean one thing. They are meant for racing. Their ultralight heft is ideal for the weight weenie racers. But even in races it’s not unheard of to find yourself bouldering or frequently shouldering your bike, and these shoes are awkward to run in and the carbon portions of their soles are slick.

After less than ten rides I noticed that the customization process had caused some seams and seals on the toe were coming apart. This was probably from the suction process receding the shoe towards my foot. It made the shoe look cheap and undesirable.

seams coming apart way too early

All of these aspects put together make my experience with these shoes quite disappointing. It will be a long time before I bring myself to this specific of technology again. There are better shoes out there, especially at $300.

Even though I’ve barely used my SH-M300 shoes I’m more likely to grab any of my older pairs of Shimanos and leave these on the shelf.

I recommend you do the same.

these clipless pedal cleats need replacement

Shoe cleats last a long time and don’t require much maintenance but they need to be kept them screwed on tight. If they become loose on a ride you run the risk of loosing them and nothing can be a bigger bummer than limping home one-footed. Plus the strain of ripping the screws from your shoe can strip the fixing threads. So every few months it’s a good idea to take an Allen wrench and give the fixing screws a squeeze. But you don’t want to over tighten them either. Most cleats only need a 5Nm torque or as we like to call it at the bike shop, a two finger tight. That is about the same force it takes to screw in a light bulb. That goes for mountain bike shoes as well as road shoes.

But every year or two you might need to replace the cleats altogether. Mountain bike cleats seem to last forever because they are still usually made of steel. Road cleats are the ones that need to be replaced more often. To keep them lightweight, most pedal manufacturers make cleats out of plastic and these can wear down from walking around and normal clip-in use.

these have some life left in them

Shimano cleats even have wear marks on the edges of their systems that help to let you know when it’s time to buy a new pair. Use these as a much better indicator of cleat life than how they might feel in the pedals. A new seat of cleats will not necessarily feel tighter in your pedals – that might be the float in your pedal. But if you feel your cleats getting slicker on pavement when you walk around off the bike there might be increasing wear that needs to be addressed too.

There might be other factors as well: your shoe might pop out once in awhile when you’re pulling up on the pedal. If this happens and you haven’t replaced your cleats for a while it might be a good idea to start thinking about it. You wouldn’t want total failure on a group ride that might leave you with an embarrassing memory or someone getting hurt. It can happen and prevention is the best tool to keep you in line and riding right.

When buying a new set of cleats make sure you know the part number you are replacing. Shimano makes a new update almost every year but some pedals will take slightly different cleats. Shop for the pedal, not just your existing cleat. You might have the option to choose a floating cleat or a fixed cleat as well.

you are forbidden from riding these

I know some dudes that have never been fans of movement cleats. Old guys – meaning people that have been riding since the 70s – just don’t understand them. One of these “old dudes” I ride with says he “never has ridden them unless his were so worn out that they became floating cleats.” Ha ha. Obviously he was completely stoked when Shimano came out with the fixed red cleats. The fixed cleat aspect achieves an even tighter leg to pedal that can’t be had anywhere else. But they are best for track racing and not when you are putting in 80-250 miles a week.

While some old pro’s like Steve Tilford are fixed cleat diehards, I would recommend sticking with floating cleats because they are easier on your knees.

Scott has come and gone from the U.S. market several times over the past decade making their shoes suspect to quality. Their mid-level All Mountain Shoes are part of their latest offering and you might find them for as little as $95 online. It’s more likely your local bike shop will charge more.

Being an enthusiast-level shoe, these have less venting than a higher-performance one. In the heat of summer, these shoes got warm but never too hot. When I switched to my pair of racing shoes I suddenly got a thorn in my foot via one of the vents, but riding those same trails with these Scotts let me kick spiked cactus knobs like rubber balls.

On the flip side these are a great part-time shoe for the winter since they are a little warmer. Fewer vents mean they’re good in the cold and it’s always a plus to have a cheaper pair of winter shoes in the stable that don’t mind getting trashed.

They may look like a hightop but they acted more like a lowtop shoe. The main purpose of the high inside cuff is for protection, but I banged my ankles up on my chainstays more than once. I would be happy to trade those removed chunks of padding for my missing pieces of ankle.

The shoes are a bit on the heavy side, and the padding got even heavier when things got wet. But the grip from the soles was all-time, and I found traction on both wet and mossy riverbeds as well as Moab sandstone. After a summer and fall of hard riding, these boots have yet to break. The sharp edges of the shoe tread have rounded a bit, and the Velcro enclosures don’t stick as tightly as they did when they were brand new, but most riders would be able to use these for more than one season.

There really is no substitute for good, supportive footwear, especially when the weather outside is ugly. Fortunately, many shoe manufacturers are stepping to the plate with new and improved winter shoe designs. The Diablo GTX is Sidi’s longtime offering in the winter shoe department for the off-road crowd.

Featuring a leather, Cordura, and neoprene upper with a Gore-Tex liner, this shoe is said to be waterproof and breathable. Four Velcro straps have been charged with security duty. Sidi uses the venerable competition sole from their Dominator model, which allows for the option of running toe spike up front. In typical Sidi fashion, the construction of this shoe is dynamite.

It seems as though Sidi, like other shoemakers, have a love and hate position in the two-wheeled trade. Most of these opinions are a result of fit – one brand works for some, but not all. This Sidi model is available in whole sizes from 39 to 50, and featuring a slightly roomier version of the standard Sidi D/E width to accommodate thicker socks on the coldest days. The Diablo GTX will best fit those with average width feet.

I can vouch for the waterproof ability of this shoe. After riding and standing around in the rain and mud for weekends at a time in the Pacific Northwest this Christmas holiday I took my Diablos off to reveal totally dry socks. Downhillers and free riders might be interested in adding some gators to help keep water out of the tops of the shoes for even more brutal conditions and higher speeds. There was a water crossing or two that made it quite easy for me to fill these boots up with water – the Gore-Tex membrane is only 4.75” tall.

Also for fit, offering these shoes in whole sizes, and only one width might hamper some, but finding the right sock and shoe combo may smooth things out. Wider feet might feel more uncomfortable even if you toss the stock insoles for something with more support.

The Velcro closure held tightly for the test period, but I’m sure the rest of this shoe will far outlast the Velcro. The hard plastic sole didn’t inspire much confidence off the bike. I found myself skittering around the woods like a crazy bear on ice skates when conditions were slippery. These boots, with a thick Merino wool sock, kept my feet warm in temps holding around the upper 30s, but I was wishing for more insulation when the mercury dropped below the freezing mark.

This shoe will best serve those looking for a fall slash winter slash spring shoe that performs well in wet, moderately cold climates. They also are an idea for road riders who are looking for more protection from road grit and snow runoff in mucky, gross conditions.

The shoes are lightweight and sporty with typical Sidi graphics that will seduce the performance geeks among us. They are a sexy shoe, probably the slickest-looking winter shoe out there but if you’re looking for a warm winter shoe, or a shoe that is as good off the bike as it is on, look elsewhere.

Perhaps I’m picky, but for $329, I would like some more width options, half sizes, a descent stock insole and some sort of ratcheting retention system Sidi is known for in their shoes. It would also be nice to have an outsole that better suits frequent hike-a-bike sections that come with winter weather. Sidi’s are made in Italy.