We’ve all heard of Sidi, but in the U.S., Crono & Luck less so. Which is a shame, because each year at Eurobike we’re impressed with the variety and features they’re bringing to the game. Luck is a Spanish brand that offers a complete range of shoes, with a couple of new ones for enduro and trail mountain biking and winter riding. But the show stopper was their custom printed Galaxy MTB model. Shown above, you can upload your artwork and they’ll produce a pair of shoes in your own design. They’ll do this on the Galaxy and Invictus mountain bike shoes, or the Genius and Iris road shoes. Retail from €299/pair.
It’s not just graphics they’ll do custom, they can make made-to-measure shoes, too. Use their online guide to measure your feet and they’ll make them however you need them in either road or mountain bike form. They make each side separately, based off separate measurements for each foot, so they’re a great option for anyone with drastically different sized or abnormally shaped feet.
For Winter riding, which’ll be here before we know it, the Artico (MTB) and Artix (road) shoes use a neoprene insulated collar and various layers of materials like Thinsulate, with a Sion-Tex membrane surrounding your foot to keep water and wind out. The footbed is infused with silver ions to prevent funk, and the whole outer lower is covered in a natural rubber honeycomb to protect it from damage. The tread on both models is natural rubber, too, sustainably extracted from trees to avoid petroleum based products. Nice touch.
Another nice touch? The reflectivity hidden behind the rubber provides safety while looking subtle when there’s no one shining a light at you.
The Luck Enduro, like all of their shoes, is made in Spain and uses a raised inner face to protect your ankle from smashing the crank arms. The model gets dual ATOP dial closures, a lightweight microfiber upper with reinforced areas all around, and a Vibram outsole.
The shoes are made with extra toe protection and reinforcements, too, and are almost too good looking to get dirty. But oh do we want to get some of these dirty. The base is made to offer pedaling support but also be walkable for hike a bikes and long days. With a retail price of €132 they seem like a good deal for the feature set, and at 392g (claimed) per shoe, they’re very light for the category. And they come in blue/pink, yellow/red and blue/orange color combos, too. Check them out at luck-bike.es.
2019 Sidi Road & Mountain Bike Shoes
Sidi has revamped their most popular road and mountain bike shoes, with updated closure mechanisms, upper materials and more. The Wire 2 is dramatically different looking, moving the lower dial closure over the center top of your foot for more even tension. The uppers will come in two versions, standard (shown in yellow) and Air (white), the latter getting almost entirely perforated uppers for better breathability.
The upper strap is smaller and lighter. Traction pads are replaceable, and the full carbon outsole had vents to keep your feet cooler.
The heel cup is new and gets air vents on the inside face (visible on first photo), but keeps their replaceable, adjustable fixture.
New colors are added, which are toned down with matte options, or glossed up like the Blue and White. Across them all, though, we like the simpler color block scheme compared to the graphical ones from years prior.
The Shot is their top end model and uses a dual ratchet closure on the center tongue. The shoes carry over with the same features as 2018 but add new matte red and black colors.
The all-new Ergo 5 gets a major facelift, switching to a much smoother microfiber upper that’s both more modern looking and available in matte color options.
Compared to the outgoing Ergo 4, the new Ergo 5 gets a very similar new vented heel cup as the Wire 2, but without the adjustable bit above it. It also gets the smaller, more flexible instep strap on the upper closure, a vented tongue and a carbon composite sole.
For mountain bikers, there’s a lot of the same look, feel and feature sets from the road, but with their SRS replaceable tread blocks on the bottom. The Drako 2 gets the updated uppers with matte and textured gloss color options and is also thankfully free of the swirls and graphics that have so long adorned Sidi’s shoes.
On nice feature of the SRS Ground Carbon sole is that you can also replace the cleat bed, so if it wears down from use, you can just put a new one in and give new life to your shoes. They say this negates the need for the small metal back plate that Crank Brothers and Look pedals recommend, but we’d still suggest using that to maintain tighter engagement throughout the life of the cleats.
Smaller top strap, new heel cup…it’s all here on the Drako 2, too.
The Dragon 5 gets all the same updates as the Ergo 5, meaning it loses the adjustable heel section to simplify and save weight.
It’s a carbon composite outsole with the SRS treads, but no replaceable cleat bed.
Sidi’s cable retention design has a flip-up lever to help you twist them, with a simple push-button release. Look for all of these shoes to hit their website and the market late this year.
2019 Crono mountain bike shoes
Italian shoemaker Crono has a completely new model and their first modern flat pedal shoe (not a Sidi, sorry!) Using a suede-like microfiber upper, it introduces two big new features for the brand. First, it’s using a single BOA closure, meaning they’ve switched from their own dial. Second, it gets a grippy Vibram outsole.
A neoprene cuff is a nice touch, too, helping keep trail debris out. Reflective hits on the rear and subdued looks mean these are equally useful as commuter shoes, too.
They’ll come in two options…one with beefier tread blocks and SPD cleat mounts, the other with more walkable, cleat-free rubber. As a collection, it’s nice to see such a storied brand update their look to be more modern without giving up the feature sets that make them special.
