If The Shoe Fits...

Many years ago, while still in elementary school, I once made the mistake of wearing my soccer cleats while riding my BMX bike to practice. Long story short, I had somehow managed to press the cleats into the pedals in such a way (such was the force of my pedal stroke!) that when I arrived at the nearby fields and needed to remove my foot from the pedals, neither foot would dislodge, and I more or less fell over onto the grass, much to the amusement of my teammates.



Do NOT wear ON bike

Earlier this fall, possibly while still ensorcelled by and suffering from withdrawals post-FIFA World Cup, I took part in a faculty/staff vs. students soccer match at the university campus where I work. In the process of our victorious route of the upstart student team, I noticed a friend of mine who had these old, wonderful leather cleats she used in her glorious undergraduate days on the pitch. They were a pair of Adidas ‘Copa Mundial’ shoes (which, in Spanish, means World Cup. Hmm, coincidence?)

Anyway, what caught my eye about them was that in an age of synthetic wonder-materials and radical designs for sporting equipment, these shoes still retained a very classic, traditional look about their craftsmanship and something very timeless about their simplicity. I literally took a shoe out of her hand while getting ready in the parking lot adjacent to the field and examined the shoe closely (as she, of course, looked at me as though I were crazy). I looked at the shoe’s upper, the heel, the tongue, the top-sole, and the cleated bottom. The shoe seemed amazing in its singular purpose, namely, to make contact with, strike, and control soccer balls, all the while providing traction for the fortunate player who happened to be wearing them.

My subsequent investigation into whether these shoes were still manufactured and sold only added to my obsession,.. err, infatuation.. uhmm, I mean, interest in these shoes. They seemed so wonderful in a way that made me want to play soccer more often, if only to possibly justify my purchasing a pair and running around a grassy field with them on my feet. “Heeey, looook at meee and my cooool shooooes!!!”

Yes, this IS STILL a mostly cycling-related blog. But, if cross-country skiing has somehow weaseled its Nordic ways onto these pages, then why not a word or two about beautiful soccer cleats? But ENOUGH already about the soccer cleats! ¡Basta ya! Let us switch the fine footwear talk to something more appropriate to this venue: cycling shoes.

A wise bike racer once told me that a major difference between the old pedal, clip, and strap cycling setup and the newer, “clipless” shoe + pedal systems that emerged in the mid-1980s was all about abuse. That in one instance, the shoe used to take most of the abuse from the rider’s foot and the pedaling motion, and twisting and being strapped into the pedal, etc. And that in the more contemporary setup, it was the pedal that took all of the abuse, now serving as a platform surface onto which the rider’s foot was locked as if in a ski-binding. In fact, it was the French ski-binding company, ‘LOOK’ which had pioneered this new setup. I can still see LeMond and Hinault battling it out on the Alpe, and around those same years, old stubborn Sean Kelly of Ireland still holding out with the old ways.

Needless to say, I’ve owned a few pairs of cycling shoes over the years. Most of my road shoes have been a variation on the basic spring-loaded pedal + cleat ‘LOOK’ or Shimano-model. For my mountain bike and cyclocross adventures, I’ve almost exclusively rolled with Shimano ‘SPD’-type cleats.

My humble but steadfast SiDi 'Genius' shoes

Most worthy of mention here are my SiDi shoes ("Genius" and "Dominator". Gotta love those names, so appealing to my fragile male ego!) One road pair, one mtn. (“off-road”) pair. And of course, my “race day only” semi-custom moldable carbon-soled Shimano R220 road shoes.

SiDi 'Dominators' dominating my office!

Both pairs of SiDi shoes are absolute workhorses that, like many things which come from Italy, do not sacrifice style in the name of function, even though they function extremely well. Not few have been the times that I’ve paused for a moment before or after a ride to just look at the shoes and admire their sublime earnestness just prior to putting them on, or after removing them. It’s probably just as well I contemplate their beauty and craftsmanship then, as I most often literally forget I have them on my feet while riding the bike. To me, THAT has to be the mark of a great shoe. So comfortable and maintenance-free, that one need not worry about that most constant interface with the machine.

Ready to blast-off!

What can I say about my Shimano R220s? These wonder-shoes have a carbon + thermoplastic molded, custom-tweakable sole that can be shaped and re-shaped with the application of heat (assuming your local bike shop carries them). Anyway, these shoes are the modern bike-geek equivalent of those Shrinky Dink-type things one would put in the oven in the 1980s (toxic fumes, anyone?). Straps, ratcheting buckles, sleek mesh, ridiculous stiffness for power transfer onto the pedaling surface… Wearing these on my feet is probably the closest I’ll ever get to wearing one of those NASA space suits that astronauts get to wear. All that technology… What’s not to like?

Sadly, mine are decomposing in the
Milpitas, CA landfill, I'm sure...

I finally turn to my first pair of cycling shoes. They were a pair of (gasp!) lace-up Detto Pietros. Smooth, all black leather, with a bunch of little holes for ventilation. The sole was a hard molded plastic that had a cleat that one had to literally secure into the shoe with nails and a hammer! Retro indeed. Someone ought to take the top-soles of those Dettos and attach them to a bottom one can casually wear around the house or around town, and they’d probably make a killing with the early-onset midlife crisis/urban hipster crowd!

Italian champ Felice Gimondi, 1968
or '72, it's hard to tell...

Shoes, they support our weight, and carry most of us through our lives’ journeys. Cycling shoes in particular are a bit odd, for they are not at all designed for walking much, and are most NOT in their element when not attached somehow to a bicycle pedal. Sort of like wearing those fly-fishing waders when not actually standing in a river? Perhaps. But just as fly fishermen have waders and a whole bunch of other specialized, task-oriented objects that might seem weird or secretive to the uninitiated, so too do cyclists have in their shoes a seemingly mundane object that even at its most utilitarian, can rise to the level of fine aesthetic craftsmanship and secret sauciness. Just don’t try to play soccer in them.