Looking for shoe (similar tread) to a five ten free rider with wide toe box.

Well I would go looking then, maybe there is a shop that hasn't decided to move on from you as a customer and they would let you try something.

That’s nice, but really, why would anyone care?

I haven't looked hard as I like the 5.10 shoes. They are too narrow for my right foot post surgery though.

Amazon has shoe stretchers for cheap that will stretch the width to your like. Get your shoes wet, put the stretcher in to your liking, and let it dry while under tension. Do that a few times and you'll be fine.

That'll probably get you to 2E or maybe even 4E. If you've got giant flippers, I don't know.

Stretchers work best on leather, have tried them on synthetics and not great results. I was a PK through High School and college, and pedalling triggers old injuries. Taken to wearing extra wide NB runners but tread is not ideal.

Lake is always my go to for wide shoes. The MX169 looks similar to Five Ten

I'd look at New Balance offerings for skate shoes in their 2E width.

Will try Lake comfort plus last. Looks good. Weird website though. They list the linked ones as Fit-Regular but they are rated comfort plus wide

sold out almost all sizes currently

Lake also makes leather shoes. I don't know if the leather ones are on models other than their good ones which are probably out of the OP's price range and may only be made as 3-bolt (LOOK compatible) shoes. Chain stores like Performance used to carry house brand shoes made by LOOK with both bolt patterns. Cheap, very well made, both bolt patterns (why doesn't everybody do that?) and they fit my feet very well.

I bought the good LOOKs in a hurry when I was packing for my final Cycle Oregon ridden fix gear. Looked at my old, cheap looks and wasn't sure they would physically make it. (They'd already done 5 of CO's more mountainous rides fixed.) Went on line and saw that now the cheapest LOOK shoes for 3-bolt cleats and leather was next to top of the line and expensive. But - I needed shoes I could trust and they better work for my feet for this next ride. (Mountains on fix gears are VERY hard on your feet! Doctor's visits for my feet happened after most of those fix gear CO weeks.) The perk for spending that dough? The colors. LOOK's Burgundy leather is the perfect color for my freshly painted Peter Mooney! And Saphir's Hermes Red shoe polish is exactly LOOK's Burgundy. In my wildest dreams I never thought I"d be riding cycling shores to match my bike but what-the-heck; it's fun. And my feet love it!

Good suggestion, but I think he already has a few of those.

Flat pedal or cleated?

Flat

The 5.10’s have a dot tread pattern and soft rubber that let the pedals sink into the rubber. You feel almost glued to pedal but still easy to disengage and comfortable for walking. Wide NB runners tend to slip

This is one of those few times where Mike is absolutely right.

5.10 is probably the best known but other mountain bike specific shoe are included. They are absolutely not equivalent to a running or walking or hiking shoe.

Sure they aren't clipless but shape and type of rubber matter a lot. Leatt, 5.10, Fox, companies like that. House brands like Bontrager and Specialized also make them but I would go with the real thing for the same price first.

Unparallel has a lot of the 5.10 designs from before 5.10 got swallowed by Adidas. Keeping their shoes in stock seems to be a challenge so I've never managed to try them on. Too bad.

I still don't think stretching a pair of Free Riders would be a problem. I only say that because I have a pair and I've stretched them.

While Leatt's toe box is not "very" wide, the Ridegrippro grip is comparable to 5.10's Stealth. I much prefer Leatt's sole support over 5.10, and the Leatt has more room above my toes. My foot is US size 9 in length, but I wear 10.5 in most shoes for toe room, and I must use a large shoe stretcher also. I wear a size 11 in 5.10s. The synthetic material upper of both shoes don't respond well to stretching. High heat from a hair drier helps a little.

Only problem with them is that the soft rubber that makes them so effective at grip also leads to very rapid wear. I was going through a pair every few months. The rubber also hardeners over time so even in low use situations they lose some effectiveness. Like winter tires. Very short lifespan at maximum efficiency.

All rubber hardens and dries out over time, find something else to complain about.

I'll assume that you have looked far and wide locally. There's no substitute for trying them on. Other than that chestnut, I have nothing to add, although I'll be interested in hearing what you find.

Meeeoooow. Save it for his ridiculous posts. This one is a well worthwhile topic.

I'm going on my 4th year on a pair of fabric Freeriders. Other than being dusty down to the molecular level, they're fine. A few chunks or rubber missing on the sole but nothing notable. According to Strava, I've ridden 6000 miles off road in that time. Most of that was on these shoes but some were on some clipless shoes too.

My secret? I don't wear these shoes to do anything else. Just like clipless, I put them on when I start and take them off when I finish and complain when I have to hike my bike.

I suppose you could get 5.10, La Sportiva, Scarpa, or Evolv approach shoes. They'll have sticky rubber and are made for walking and scrambling on rocks. Not climbing shoes but a better climbing shoe than most walking shoes. I've mountain biked in my Scarpa approach shoes, it is way better than regular shoes. None of those brands are going to be wide.

That's what happens when someone starts so many ridiculous threads -- people lose any interest in helping them, because they're trolling 95% of the time. I think it was summarized nicely by another forum member in a recent thread:

Not so much that rubber hardens, I don’t have them long enough for that. The soft rubber wears quickly, both on the pedals and especially on hot pavement, which I try to avoid.

BFG has a new compound on the TA KO3s that is claimed to wear slower so maybe it will trickle down to bike shoes.

Then why bring up the point of rubber hardening over time?

Bringing up truck tires when trolling the forum about your shoe choice is just more trolling.

Because if you don’t use them often or leave them out in the sun the rubber hardens and they lose much of their benefits. I wear them out before that happens.

Regardless. Worth the trade off. On a size notify list for a pair of Lake’s so we’ll see how that goes.