Any tips? When I ride in the rain my synthetic Dom 5s get drenched and take a few days to air-dry. I am wondering if it is safe to wrap the shoes up in a beach towel, tie it, then throw them in a dryer?

After dealing with this a while back the best solution that I was able to come up with having a second pair of clipless shoes at the ready.

My mom did the whole thing with shoes in the oven back when I had converse as a kid (warm setting for a couple hours)...but I know how well it would work on cycling shoes.

Same trick you use for sopping running shoes:

Stuff them with lightly crumpled newspaper. Change out the paper after an hour or two when the first batch is drenched. The paper absorbs the water, and helps maintain the shape of the shoe while it's drying.

If you have forced air heating, and it's on this time of year..place them over a heat vent or radiator if you have radiator heat. The room won't smell great, but the air will be nicely moisturized.

But i have also thrown several pairs of my cycling shoes into the dryer too, to no ill effects, just don't put them on super high heat. Low or air fluff.

If you have forced air heat, pull the tongues out and stick 'em over a heat register. Radiators are good too, unless they're steam fed and get hot enough to melt plastic.

What not to do: throw them in a heavy plastic bag and forget about them in your trunk for a few weeks. I had to throw that pair away.

edit: d'oh!

I use this.

Thanks for the tips! I can't throw the shoes in the dryer this late at night, and we have heat but it's never on, so newspaper it is!

The PEET looks neat, if it's not too much I might get one. Did you know NHL players use the same thing during intermissions for their gloves?

They have coin-op ones at the ski areas around here for gloves and boot liners.

Happens to me quite often. I put it near a heat register... Still, the stink can be quite persistent.

^^THIS!^^

Do not heat them. Any glue used in footwear is heat activated. I have Dom 5s and Dragons. Not sure if there is much glue, but why chance it? Same with hiking boots. Not even extended stays in the hot trunk of a car if you can help it.

Pull the insoles out, then dry as mentioned above with several changes of crumpled newspaper. Blowing a fan at them (room temp) is OK. NO HEAT!

Most dryers come with a shoe rack that hangs inside the drum (the drum rotates around it, the rack does not move). Set your shoes on the rack, close the door start the dryer...voila! If you are like me, you tossed the shoe rack aside when you bought the dryer, and it will take you a couple of hours to find it.

But, if you have one, it works great!

Please...no heat. You will drastically shorten the life of almost any shoe. Cool air in dryer is OK.

Stuff them with loosely wadded newspaper and place in a well ventilated area or in front of a fan.

They'll dry faster if you periodically change the paper as per CliftonGK1's suggestion.

JoeyBike is correct about using heat when drying shoes or boots.

+1 to the newspaper, works a treat

I take the insoles out aswell and wash them too (just rinse with warm water to get the crappy water out)

+1 to Joeybike aswell, I dont force dry them, the newspaper does it over night

Remove the insoles. Stuff shoes with wadded newspapers. If you change the newspaper after a few hours, that will speed up the drying. Works like a charm.

I've found that a fan dries out my rain soaked shoes in about an hour. My routine after a rain ride is to tie the shoes together, hang them over my top tube, then use a fan to dry the shoes and my bike.

This is exactly what I do. Heat == bad. I once propped up my feet too close to a campfire and had my Teva sandals start to become undone from the heat!

At work I'll set them in front of a fan and leave it on medium or high. At home I'll set my shoes in the oven, with the nominal heat from the gas pilot light, they're dried gently overnight and good to go in the morning. I hate the sound of big, clunky shoes (with metal cleats) banging around in the drier. Shrinks them too.

I don't think that keeping them stuffed with paper towels / newspaper for the entirety of the drying process is the way to go. The paper absorbs a lot of water, yes, but eventually an equilibrium is reached and it's just damp everywhere. I've found that one or two cycles of, say, two hours with the stuffing is good, but you should let the shoes air dry - without the stuffing - after that.

I had just the OP's situation yesterday on both legs of my commute. I did as I said above, and they were dry both by the time I went home last night and by the time I left the house this morning.

+1, plus the put a fan on them.

Stuff with ShamWow!

I am loyal to these mesh shimanos for their ability to drain and to airdry during a workday if I remove the insoles.

Most dryers allow you to adjust the heat level. If you need then dried fast then sorry, you'll need at least a little heat. I usually let mine air dry, but in a pinch, I put them in the dryer, on a shoe rack, with low heat and it works great.

This made me LOL.
Made in Germany! You know the Germans always make good stuff!


Thanks one and all for the tips. I stuffed 'em with newspaper and they were dry enough in the morning!

Preemptive drying