Springtime shoes are here, with new kicks from Shimano, Sidi & Suplest ready for all sorts of training, road & gravel riding. Shimano’s latest superlight, simple & affordable indoor shoes will have you spinning circles into fitness, and walking easy around the gym. Sidi’s limited Multicolor will make you stand out in style on the road. And Suplest’s collab with OPEN will have you ready to explore Alpine gravel roads, with the added possibility of an ultra-limited gravel bike to match…
Shimano IC2 walkable indoor cycling spinning shoes
This past winter Shimano launched their lightest, quick-drying IC1 indoor cycling shoes for building fitness on the trainer inside. But while they were both affordable & super convenient for their universal 3/2-bolt road & mountain bike pedal compatibility, they were lacking in walkability around the gym. Now a new IC2 version takes that same slip-on open mesh, single velcro strap upper, and sticks a walkable SPD sole on it for improved usability.
Now the 4th shoe in the Shimano Indoor family, the 2-bolt IC2 is just as quick & easy to slip into. And at just $100 the Shimano IC2 shoes are about as affordable as you are going to get.
The new indoor shoes feature a medium stiffness reinforced nylon sole with full rubber covering and raised heel, toe & forefoot tread blocks that recess your SPD cleats. The new tread design means they lose the toe vent of the IC1, but keep the same full mesh upper with heel & toe wear protection.
While well-suited “sweating it out” at home in your pain cave, they’ll make it easier to walk around the slick-floored gym once fitness studios fully open again. Like the IC1, the IC2 is built on a unisex size-specific last, where smaller sizes (36-41 get a narrower fit than the larger sizes (42-48.) The new shoes are available now online, and through Shimano retailers this month.
Sidi Sixty Multicolor limited edition road bike shoes
Sharing all of the same top performance tech & lightweight of the original 60th anniversary celebratory Sidi Sixty road shoes, these new limited edition Multicolor Sixties add an artful touch. Inspired by the wildest colors of Sidi shoes in the 1990s, the LTD Sidi Sixty Multicolor pops with a slightly more subtle red, yellow & blue watercolor paint job.
The beauty of Sidi’s recent limited edition Sidi Sixties is they pack in all of the same lightweight (290g per shoe) made-in-Italy construction with a vented, full carbon sole & Tecno-4 Plus dial closure tech, for the same 339€ price tag as the standard Sixty.
The trick is more likely just trying to find a pair in your size due to their limited run.
Suplest x OPEN edition EDGE+ XC Gravel bike shoes
Developed as their first proper gravel shoe in a collaboration with fellow Swiss gravelers at OPEN, the new Suplest EDGE+ XC / Gravel Performance cycling shoes are an iterative update over their previous EDGE+ Crosscountry Performance cycling shoes.
The 250€ Suplest Gravel shoes add a bit more classic stitching to the otherwise heat-welded, perforated microfiber upper. They share the same asymmetric anatomic wrap fit system, with the thin Carbon Shield layer distributing pressure evenly under the zip-zagging single Boa IP-1 wire (not a loop like most Boa retention setups.)
The Gravel shoes share the same carbon-reinforced composite sole with a stiffened core under the cleats, like Suplest’s other middle Performance-range MTB shoes. They also get the same new grippy rubber SUPtraction outsole and premium Solestar insole. Claimed weight is just 308g (without insole), and they are available in whole sizes 39-47, plus half sizes 42-45.
OPEN x Suplest ultra-limited edition UP gravel bike
So, now that you’ve settled on a new pair of Swiss alpine gravel grey Suplest Gravel shoes, you’re gonna need a perfectly color-matched matte alpine gravel grey OPEN U.P. frameset with matching fire red inside the fork to build up into your perfect gravel bike, right? It’s hard to argue with the versatility of the UP, one of the first proper carbon gravel bikes, and still the basis on which so many others are measured.
How do you get one of the rare twenty framesets? Apparently, you need to ask nicely. Just email Suplest here, and see if they have one in your size still available.
