Only available in a few limited sizes.


I really want the Detto Pietro shoes but feel the supplier is "out of reach". I even sent emails but never received a response.

this reminds me that I saw some neat shoes at NAHBS 2015.... Velo Sport Imports had some very sexy shoes that looked like some nice Dettos, but had Look compatible soles.
Here are a few shots that I took:






There was also Riivo Custom Shoes. Here's a model that looked a bit modern, but should be very compatible with toe clips.....






Steve in Peoria

Great post, Steve.

I searched for Velo Sport but did not find those shoes. That leather looks,... comfortable.

I really want the Dettos because of the leather sole but won't buy without trying them on. If I could try those black lace-up shoes on for size, I'd buy those. Is that brand "Summerville"?


The Riiva shoe has that Velcro strap that I'd bet a buck interferes with the toe strap.




P.S. - I got out tonight for a short ride with the now lug-less shoes. MUCH BETTER! They really help with climbing and around here, you really need that. It starts at 6,000 feet and only goes up - both ways!

It looks like it is Sommerville Sports. I did find some nice reviews of the shoes online..
Sommerville Sports Shoes ? Pretty Damned Fast
The shoes weren't cheap, as you might guess. The price was $240 USD.
It looks like Sommerville Sports was acquired by Verge Sport...
Verge America Ltd

My guess is that you could contact Verge at their website if you wanted to see if these shoes are still in production. (I hope they are)


My experience with the Shimano sports shoes suggests that the strap shouldn't be an issue. The Shimano shoes have two straps.. a small one in front, and a large one at the rear. The small forward one hasn't been a problem for me, and the large one at the rear doesn't touch the clip or strap at all.
Here are some shots of my Shimano shoe.... (I've got the clip spaced forward a bit to provide clearance for winter booties)




always good to hear that things are working out!

Steve in Peoria

Update -


I've had the shoes for well over a month now. They were comfortable from the start but have softened a tiny bit to even better fit my feet. That's good.


I removed the large lugs on the bottoms and added a thin rubber half-sole. This really helped with both walking and riding comfort.


I had to adjust the location of my toe clips and bend them upwards a bit but now they fit the shoes just fine.


The stiff sole really improves rising efficiency over the flexible running shoes I was previously using, a lot.


All in all, they were a worthy purchase for a cost of less than $100.

I've had these shoes for over a year now and am still happy with them. I've made a few very minor modifications to them but would purchase another pair if I needed them. I put it that way ($) as a testament to their value.

That makes almost no sense given the fierce competition to make quality toe clips of strong materials and shapes, and the fact that the best ones (such as Christophe) continued to use spring steel over the years. Almost any photo of vintage bicycle racers will show everyone with their toes slammed all the way into the clips with as little play as possible. From personal experience, this absolutely facilitates the positioning of the foot over the pedal beyond any snugness in the strap.

https://www.steel-vintage.com/wordpr...ge-823x400.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...1c85a636aa.jpg

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_if_XeEEAXG...1600/coppi.jpg

https://bicyclerootsbklyn.files.word...g3555-jpg.jpeg

And on, and on...

Not to mention, why would it ever have become popular to put leather on end of the clips if the shoe was not meant to press against them? That was entirely the point. 'Tis also why they were advertised in a variety of sizes, so that folks with different shoe sizes could fit in snugly. If the shoe was not meant to press against the leading edge of the clip, it would have been a case of "large size fits all."

While you want a close fit, you don't want the shoe pressed up against the clip. That can cause discomfort. Ideally, you're looking at about a millimetre of clearance. This is small enough that it won't show up in pictures, yet sufficient to correctly position the foot for the cleat to engage the rear pedal plate.

Toe clips with leather coverings were, in my opinion, for people who rode in running shoes and not proper cycling shoes with cleats. In this case, the length of the clip was the primary tool for positioning the foot, unlike proper cycling shoes, which utilizes the cleat for positioning.

Regarding toe clip length, yes they did come in different sizes but there wasn't a lot of variety. Certainly, it wasn't like shoe sizing. The difference in the length of the toe box between each size was about 10mm. So, if one size was too small, it could take a fair build-up of washers to position the foot properly. I've run into several cases where even the largest toe clips were too short to properly position the foot. BITD, cycling products revolved around the typical European cyclist, who was much smaller than the average American cyclist. Most Americans ended up using the large European sizes and bigger cyclists were often out of luck.

Spring steel does make a difference for the average person who is riding his bicycle around time and consistently hitting the toe clips on the pavement. However, it's different for a competition cyclist and lot of them used aluminum versions for as light a weight as possible. There's a lot less strength and rigidity. But then, it wasn't necessary, because they were just positioning the toe strap.

If they haven't been mentioned, MKS makes a deep toe clip with a taller box area.

https://www.amazon.com/MKS-Deep-Stee.../dp/B003UWF3UM

The Quoc Phom "Fixed" shoes look to be patterned after traditional cycling shoes:



https://quocpham.com/collections/all...ant=5793052804

Looks like you'd have to use traditional nail-on cleats with them.

Very interesting details, T-Mar. I'm mostly interested in prewar and immediate postwar cycling, which was an era when I believe even the most professional shoes did not have cleats on them. Also, as far as I'm aware, Christophe remained among the most popular clips for athletes of all levels (throughout that period), and they were always made from spring steel for increased durability.

I do not know much about later cycling techniques and many of you guys are actually old enough to have lived it, so I defer to your understanding of the topic. I'm sorry I was not more clear about when or why I suspected toe clips were used as I stated. I even come across old photos and images such as these, where the fellows do not even have straps and is merely using the clip to position the feet. In fact, I'm under the impression that the clip outdates the strap, but I have not confirmed this.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...6dbf460340.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...7df5546fd6.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...d4c7de4b2b.jpg

No, I'm reasonably certain slotted cleats were used at least as far back as the 1930s. I'd be curious though if anyone knows when the first use was. The slot cleat + clips/straps system offers a large advantage in torque. Professionals and amateur racers would have wanted to use them, especially when gearing ranges were limited.

It seems to me that today's riders find the idea of being locked into the pedal with slotted cleat somewhat scary, and project their desire not to use them into the past. Back in the 70s through the mid/late 80s (Look era), you simply would not have ridden a fancy bike alike Colnago, DeRosa, Masi, Cinelli, etc with plain soled shoes. Didn't happen.

What would they have looked like? I can't find many good images of antique cycling shoes, but most photos of racers with their feet on the ground suggest that the soles of their shoes are flat.

And in any case, it does not change the fact that many early styles of clip were used without straps and most likely without cleats. There are hundreds of images of riders in late-19th/early-20th century photos and paintings that show clips being used as the primary way to secure footing over a pedal, often without the aid of straps. This goes against any argument suggesting that clips were designed not to be fit snugly over a rider's shoes.

Major Taylor with various clips, and apparently flat shoes in use without straps:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...af84e90486.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...a08a637998.jpg

https://sjtgai.com/wp-content/uploads...jor-Taylor.jpg

I used a shoe repair guy and rebuilt a pair of old cycling shoes... to build up a walkable slot cleat outsole..

Managed to meet some one who worked with me in real time, present together..

not a leave it and come back tuesday kind of situation.

Mid Tour Because the materials were common shoe repair, a patch up, little repair,glue, etc. later, was easily done.




...

They would have been nailed on cleats. Nail ons are quite shallow and you can't tell from the pictures of Mojo Taylor whether he has them or not.

Speedplay has a pretty cool pedal history museum online.

I'd imagine the simple leather 'tourist' type were probably first. Some old timers still used these when I got into cycling.



Typical nail on cleats:



Later rubber touring cleats:

I had slotted cleats in the early 80s before click-in pedals came out. I did find them scary, and most of the time, I would leave the strap on my right foot fairly loose so I could get out without reaching down. My right foot is the second one to engage and the first to disengage (LIFO).

There are these cleats for SPD shoes
Bicycle Shoe Cleats for Toeclip Pedals $29.95 at Yellow Jersey

I can recall about a half dozen different aluminum toe clips. Some manufacturers also produced them in alternate metals, such as stainless steel and titanium. Christophe did have aluminum toe clip, which they marketed as the Christophe Z.

I'm also aware of many aluminum and different style clips that are incomparable to the standard spring steel Christophe. That does not change the fact that it remained the most popular clip for decades.

Anyway, this conversation has extended for beyond my initial premise, which was to point out that clips predate the use of cleats and possibly even straps, with particular styles catering to being used in a fashion clearly meant to have the shoe pushing against the front of the clip. That's all I wanted to point out. Cheers.

The use of cleats on cycling shoes for competition dates back to at least the very late 1890s. Here's an 1897 advertisement for Spalding cycling shoes that mentions cleats as an included item.

Well that's great to see! Thanks. Thus far [MENTION=424205]Salamandrine[/MENTION] 's previous post went back about as far as I knew they were used, and did not realize it was such a regular basis.

The almost flat surface of the early cleats are what confused me when I had taken time to look over the old photographs. It begs the question, however, as to their effectiveness and whether or not such a flat cleat would actually do its job well without the front of the toe being secured in the front of the clip - again, something which many photographs bear out and the design of many early clips suggests was a regular detail.

Has anyone around here ridden on such clips? I'm very curious to get a pair of shoes I can fit some too, now. I have just the bike for it!

The cleat depth has to be great only if you are not using straps. If you are using straps, shallower cleats will work fine, provided the strap are tightly cinched. Straps were being used in conjunction with toes clips by many competitive cyclists in the late 1890s.

My understanding has always been that toe clips were developed primarily as a means of keeping the feet on the pedals and not as a tool for extra propulsion. Feet slipping off the pedals was a common problem in the days of fixed gears, especially when cadence increased on fixed gear bicycles, such as when going down hills. Strapless toe clips were quite common, especially among recreational cyclists, as there was great concern about injury from being trapped in the pedals of bicycle during a fall.

Driving the pedal over top dead centre was not really as issue with fixed gears. Even then, the common practice for getting a push over the top of the pedal stroke was to employ ankling and drop the heel so that the ball of the foot could have some forward push on the pedal.

I don't believe I ever suggested that they were useful for additional propulsion, and have always assumed it was about maintaining a stable footing on the pedals. However, especially in the case of many early clips that were not used in conjunction with straps, I cannot see how this benefit could be fully realized without the toes actually pressing against the inside of the clips. T'was my initial point and still the only major one I've tried to understand - at least a couple of people seem to think clips were invented not to be touched at the end, but many designs and uses seem to show otherwise.

Thanks T-Mar for that info. I suspected cleats went back that far because there are clipless pedal patents dating from the 1890's, but I did not know for sure.

If you've ever ridden a fixed gear down a mountain it becomes immediately obvious that foot retention would have been a major motivating factor in the early days of cycling.

AFA riding with slot cleats - it really was not a big deal. You got used to it after a ride or two, and it became instinctive to flip open the strap of your lead off foot. Functionally cleats and straps were basically the same as riding with modern cleat shoes. Generally straps were kept fairly loose in town, and then tightened up when you got on the main part of the ride and the paceline formed up or whatever.

Pure speculation, but I can imagine the initial reason for cleats was to position the foot/shoe on the pedal consistently and in the best location. The other benefits may have been realized afterward and with use.

Using a strap to keep the shoe from leaving the pedal would be the next step and position it laterally, IMHO.