Sidi toes and their minimal (if present) bumpers leave a lot to be desired for uphill scrambling. I wore holes in mine.
Oh totally, I have no idea what bikepacking is, or how long people go offroad. in my head thereâs the Divide racing version and the amiable twenty miles into a campground stuff, but thinking about it more now, yes, thereâs probably a lot in between 1500 miles nonstop and 20 miles with lots of stops.
Probably a lot of that middle ground works well with mtb shoes. I like Bontâs Riot+ road shoe, they make the same thing with more tread for offroad. Itâs like $150 for previous year model, and it has a way better internal shape than other shoes Iâve used recently.
this is the worst advice
recommending ultrastiff carbon clogs with rubber outer tread is a bold move
theyâll be just like what sheâs used to since theyâre really just 2-bolt road shoes, but it sounds like theyâre going for a real contrast not âmore of the sameâ
carbon clogs with insufficient outer grippers AND roomy enough for big socks in the winter!
I mean to be fair I also recommended bmx pedals, so Iâm basically the Janus of Pedals in this thread
Nah. Iâve scrambled up and down hillsides to trainspot in them and theyâre fine for that. Iâve also shoved my bike up some stupidly steep paths while wearing them, but thatâs not why I bought them so it doesnât count.
Dominators are MORE slippery than the Genius shoes she could barely walk in â at least the road shoes have a rubber heel pad and a giant cleat youâre wearing out in the process
the âtreadâ is even harder plastic with no ability to clear mud, itâs like hiking on ice cubes, which is most of why they take tens of thousands of miles to wear out
I wore them for years and years, and have also done multi-day bikepacking tours through cowpatties in road shoes
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I donât know about Sidis specifically but in my experience carbon soled shoes with lugs and toe spikes work great for thick slick steep and/or off camber mud. I have a pair of Shimano ME7s that are more comfortable to walk in, but the only thing they have better traction on is probably rock slabsâthe rubber is softer/stickier but the lugs are much smaller. I wouldnât rule out stiff shoes for someone who is used to/prefers them.
Wait, are you talking the SRS Doms or the older ones? My pair are pre-SRS, and the tread blocks are stiff but not solid (and, sigh, are now worn out to the point where my cleats stand proud of them) and â at least compared with the set of Geniuses I had for a while until my patience with single-sided road pedals ran out â have bucketloads of traction.
The only place Iâve found them to be slippery is on wet polished concrete, so I guess if my hypothetical bikepacking included bouldering theyâd be right out, but, as mentioned earlier, theyâre perfectly adequate for scrambling up embankments to get photos of an oncoming train.
(Apropos of tread wear, is there any way to resole a pre-SRS dominator that wouldnât cost as much as a new pair of them?)
i can understand not personally preferring a stiff narrow hard shoe, but you canât just say they suck or theyâre a bad fit. and they are certainly not WORSE at walking in than road shoes. that is a silly statement.
I loved my Rampas but the industry has definitely moved on and improved. Whatâs wrong with any of the Giro gravel jimmiesâŚTerraduro et al?
I do bikepacking (and a fair bit of non-oacking hike-a-biking) in Shimano SPHYRE mountain shoes and find them to be just fine for the task. A well fitting mountain shoe with lugs should be without issue for that use-case.
Terraduros are still solid for this application. Just heavy. Itâs too bad Giro has been putting all their effort into the knit stuff and revamping their top shelf road shoes rather than making a competitive $150 trail shoe and revamping the Terraduro with a bit less pork and a boa.
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Really, itâs hard to say, because everyone has their own magic saddle point between super-stiff-slippery-road-shoe-cum-xc-slipper and floppy-running-shoe-on-flat-pedals, so itâs worth trying some stuff on and walking around in them for a bit. Walk up something steep, fold the toe box over. I do firmly believe that this niche is better filled by modern tech than it was 30 years ago when the Dominator 5 was introduced, though.
If she wants something with a more performance fit via velcro or boa, pearl izumi makes some great options, like the X-Alp Divide, Launch, and Elevate- the Launch especially looks cool, very much a versatile, comfy/secure to walk in shoe with performance fit features. really like a nice hiking shoe sole was pasted onto a nice trail/xc shoe. Elevate is similar with a more rugged sole, I think Vibram. Seems like PI is filling this niche the best right now.
Personally Iâm all in on Shimano at the moment- XC5 for general whatever, ME7 for more trail/enduro stuff. ME4 and ME5 look nice too if she doesnât need endurobro features. The Michelin soles Shimano is using lately are really good, nice and grippy.
Terraduros are a solid option but heavy like braden mentioned- they donât fall apart anymore either (I had a pair of early ones that did so but Giro shipped me a new pair after a quick email to their customer service- really rad). I stripped the lugs off a set of VR90s after like a year, though. Maybe theyâre more durable these days.
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New stuff from SCOTT arrived today:
Both models retail for under 100 freedom dollars. The lace-up model is offered in another colorway, but the BOA jawn only comes in green/gum collabo.
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Boa flat pedal shoe?
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I have a life goal of having all my button up shirts be snaps and all my shoes be BOA laces. This is the future we deserve.
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Def on board with this. Really feeling it on the snaps. I have two sombrio shirts that are snaps and if I put on another flannel I am almost always tempted to pop the buttons open.
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Correct.