New Cycling Shoes

I’ve tried various clipless pedals over the years, and always gone back to flats on all of my bikes. Modern spiky flat pedals and sticky shoes are such a great combination. I bought my last pair of shoes, canvas FiveTen Freerider Pros, on some sort of crazy sale just under three years ago. Other than the bottom being chewed up from my various pedals, they were still in seemingly good condition.

However, I've noticed this a lot of discomfort on my road/gravel bike this season (but still good on the mountain bikes). Weird aches and pains, numb wrists, numb toes, and such. I was chatting with a friend of mine about it, and he suggested shoes could be a culprit (and as expected for a roadie, tried to get me to switch to clipless). Once I started paying attention, I noticed my riding shoe had about the same flex as regular gym shoes instead of being super stiff. The real surprise though was checking my recorded rides, and realizing I've put over 4600 miles on these shoes in the three years.

New shoes arrived today. Also FiveTen Freerider Pros, plastic instead of canvas which is a bit of a bummer. These do have the boa system instead of laces though, so no more having to stop my bike to tie muddy laces with sweaty gloves. Hopefully the rain stops at some point so I can try them out.