How to choose your cycling shoes

 How to choose your cycling shoes

Getting the right choice of our footwear is essential to be able to practice any type of cycling comfortably and making the most of the strength of our legs. We tell you how to choose your next shoes.

Footwear is one of the most personal and complicated aspects to choose in our wardrobe, both cyclists and everyday. It is possible that, even having the same size, the shoe that a partner is like a glove for us will cause friction or the size is wrong.

- How to choose your cycling shoes and products

Choosing a shoe by its brand or colors is a mistake, since if it does not adapt to the morphology of our foot, the only thing that we will get will be pain and tightness that will reduce our performance (our feet can fall asleep). Therefore, to make the right choice, a series of parameters must be taken into account that will be fundamental for our comfort.


Footwear in general tends to have a universal or neutral design so that it is optimal for everyone. However, in cycling there are brands that opt ​​for tighter last or toe designs for a more extreme fit, which causes discomfort if someone has a wider foot. There are also models of cycling shoes with a more marked bridge, or the heel ... details that can cause us discomfort or, on the contrary, adapt perfectly to our foot morphology. The key is to know what we need and what each brand offers us, for which it is essential to try on the shoes on both feet before buying.

If we do not do it and we find a shoe that, for example, is narrow, it will cause friction, pain or excessive pressure on certain points of the foot, making the routes become an ordeal. That is why we should not leave the choice of our footwear to chance, or to the simple taste for design.

Another factor that we must take into account, and that will be our first criterion of choice, is the budget. The market offers us a wide range of options from models with a more adjusted price to the same shoes used in the professional peloton, so the first thing we must mark is the money that we can spend.

What is a cycling shoe like? Sole
Generally, what defines a cycling shoe is the sole. Both due to the type of cleat anchoring (normally all are triple screw for Shimano's SPD-SL systems, Look's or Time's) and because of the material and configuration that we find.

The sole of cycling shoes is not designed for walking. It is flat and slippery. When we get off the bike we lean on the cleat itself and on the small rubber spots on the heel, but unlike MTB shoes they are not designed to be used for more than a few meters. In addition, they are very rigid, which increases this difficulty in walking.

The objective of this design and rigidity is that when we pedal, we rest our entire foot on the surface of the shoe and make the maximum possible force in the cleat area to transmit this force to the pedal and, therefore, to the transmission. No watts should be wasted in unnecessary flexing of the sole.

Tips for choosing your cycling shoes

Although it is not a universal figure, and not all brands declare it, there is a scale that can indicate the stiffness of the sole of the shoes. Shimano, for example, has a table that goes up to 12 (reserved for RC9 competition cars), with the range between 8 and 10 being the most suitable for regular users looking for good performance with some concession to comfort. The Luck firm also uses this type of numbering, but in this case, 10 is the maximum stiffness for a sole, indicated for sprinters who cannot lose a single watt at the moment of maximum effort.

To achieve this rigidity while maintaining a low weight, carbon fiber is the preferred material in the high range, while in lower ranges we find others such as fiberglass (also quite rigid) or nylon (somewhat more flexible and comfortable). If we are looking for maximum performance, when choosing the shoe we will have to be clear about the stiffness index or, at least, the amount of carbon in the sole.

The cover on a cycling shoe
The cover is the other differential aspect in a shoe in terms of comfort, since it is where ventilation acquires a fundamental role. The normal thing is that we find fabric (microfiber) or leather shoes with micro-perforations to favor the entry of air (in the sole there should be a channel that allows the entry and exit of air as well). It is not usual to find areas with a grid (or at least not very large) since it would greatly weaken the structure of the roof and make it lose effectiveness.

Some of these microfiber covers have the special ability to be thermoformed by heat (usually the heat that we give off when using them is more than enough) to adapt to the shape of our feet. The objective is to hug the entire structure of the foot well without excessive pressure points but without empty areas and thus transmit all the force of the pedal stroke to the sole.

As for the closure, cycling shoes long ago dispensed with the laces (except for special cases and with very particular designs) since they could be hooked with the chainrings or the chain. The most common is that we find closure systems by velcro strips (in lower ranges), toothed belt by ratchet (in medium and medium-high ranges) and by micrometric wheel type BOA or ATOP (also in medium and higher ranges) . What is not as common as it does in the mountains are the Quick Lace type lacing closures. Keep in mind that the better the system, the more expensive the shoe will be.

Tips for choosing your cycling shoes

For the shoe to fit perfectly to the foot, brands resort to various solutions. The most common is to use two of the systems (the same or different), for example two BOA type wheels or one wheel and one velcro, etc. The Shimano RC9, Pearl Izumi P.R.O. LEADER V4, S-Works 7 or Spiuk Profit R are examples of shoes with a double micrometric wheel system. Also, depending on the quality of the closure, you can use double laces that cover the entire instep and are regulated with a single wheel, special tabs ...

Another of the important points in a cycling shoe is that they have a reinforced heel and toe to avoid flexion when exerting force and support the foot correctly in the same position. The objective is that the foot does not move or shift inside the shoe with the passage of kilometers and fatigue and, in this way, we can maintain a round pedaling no matter how long the exit is.

Tips for choosing our next cycling shoes
In addition to sticking to a real budget, the first advice I can give you to buy your next shoes is that you try on several models until you find the right one, that you study well the type of foot you have and the last and bridge that best suit your morphology. We should not only care about the size in terms of the length of the foot, but also the width. It is very important that you do not press on your foot at any point (if the toe, for example, is too narrow, our toes will sleep as soon as they swell a little from the heat and effort) but that it is not loose either our feet move.

It is also important to know the type of majority cycling we do. If we usually participate in Gran Fondo type events without competitive spirit, but with many kilometers, a shoe with a higher stiffness index can be uncomfortable when fatigue takes over us. Also the ventilation capacity they have. If our area is hot we must take it into account, while if we go out to ride in rainy areas it is still a less determining factor.

In addition, they must hold our entire foot. If the shoe does not fit us perfectly, we can have a feeling of significant lack of control when we squeeze pedaling and we will lose some performance. Our shoes must keep us firm and support the heel at all times. It is another point to study carefully when we are testing them.

When we go to try on our shoes, it is advisable to do so with the majority type of sock that we use when riding a bike. That is, if we only go out in good weather we should not wear a thick winter sock, although we should not wear the thin ones of "executive type". We must also think that they are not walking shoes, so it will not be worth taking a few steps around the store. It is even better to stay still in a flexed position (simulating pedaling pressure) for a few minutes to see if friction or pressure appears at any point on the foot.

That is why it is highly advisable to go to establishments with an important assortment of shoes to try various models that fit our budget and the type of cycling we practice. And since we ask a professional for advice, it is very ugly to look for that model of shoes in another way to save a few euros. In addition, it is the best way to find a quick and easy solution in case we have problems that we were not aware of at the time of purchase (we did not go with the right socks, problems with the closures, etc.).