Originally Posted by
Reeses
Shoes don't fit the same when you put them on at the beginning of the ride vs. towards the middle when your feet start swelling. Due to lack of on-the-fly adjustability I guess you'd have to lace them up pretty precisely with that compensation in mind to have them work throughout the whole ride?
What I'm saying is, if I lace them up tight at the beginning, they'll be too tight towards the end, no? I suppose it would have to become second nature to know how tightly to lace the shoes up from the beginning?
Is there some type of friction technology in the lace holes that prevent the laces from slipping?
Are the empires a good fit for wide feet?
Have you ridden shoes with laces or are you saying this from your experience with straps? I find that laces are both more comfortable and more forgiving re: tightness than straps. If I lace them up to feel right when I leave, I rarely think about them again.
Example: the 1977 Maine International race. 2nd longest, fastest and hardest race I ever rode. Was supposed to start at 10am. I was ready with my favorite shoes laced up tight knowing the race would be decided at the 90 mile point on a tough climb. (It was.) Well, the race official missed his flight so we had to wait two hours while he drove to the start. Race went on as I described with that hill being tougher than I could have imagined. But everything at the equipment level was working perfectly for me. I made split (in a deeper level of pain than I have ever known, before or since). Finished in the money and under the previous course record (set by a little known racer, John Howard). Hours later, in the team van headed back to Boston, I realized I still had my shoes on and that I hadn't even loosened the laces! Felt good to take them off, but my feet fared just fine. That was 8 hours in shoes laced for a brutal hill climb and sprint, with no ill effect whatsoever.
The place where laced shoes really rule is on the road riding fixed gears, Straps suck because you cannot adjust them while you are riding. (Feet moving.) After 3 hours with straps, I find I may be well into one of the symptoms I mentioned in my previous post. That same ride with laces? When I stop, I may want to adjust the laces but is never to prevent injuries, just an improvement in comfort.
Laces also offer a level of "customization" to your foot. My right foot is bony and adjusting middle and top straps to not sit directly on bone and leaving me with the cracked bone sensation after hard fix gear climbs while still keeping the shoe tight enough to avoid blisters and toe compression is near impossible. But with laces, I simply don't use the holes that would put a crossing over those bones. Looks odd, but my foot loves it.
Ben