Shimano DX SH-MP66W Clipless Shoes

Tech

Price: £54.99

From Where: Chain Reaction Cycles (chainreactioncycles.com)

Tech Spec: size EU 45 (about a UK 10, give or take)

Duration of Test: since mid June 2011

                For those of you who don’t know, Shimano’s DX range is their BMX style race products. Despite having ridden BMX for a number of years, I’ve never raced, so I’m not really using these shoes for their specific purpose, but I have been using them on my commuter bike now for a number of years, roughly 40 miles a week pretty much every week since I bought them. I like to think this has put them through their paces significantly. I have ridden clipless shoes before (confusingly so named because the pedals don’t require “clips” or toe straps, but we still refer to being “clipped in”), but rather than the ultra-masculine carbon fibre silver race shoes I had before, I fancied something that looked a little bit more like a shoe rather than something designed for a pixie dancing competition.

  

As you can probably tell from the above picture, these have been through the ringer good and proper. My opening comment would be that white was not a good choice when it comes to colour. Previous versions have been a much more sensible dark grey, but at the time or release, the fashion was to make race gear in white.  Whilst this looks great on dusty race tracks in Southern California, after their third British winter, they’re looking a little tired to say the least.

                Out of the box the fit was great and the shoes required minimal breaking in. My size 45’s were a perfect fit (I’m normally a size UK 10 in trainers). The shoes come with a big Velcro flap over the front, securing the laces so they don’t get sucked into the chain ring. The laces supplied with the shoes are waaay too long, but that was easily solved by chopping them down and burning the ends with a lighter. They lasted a pretty decent length of time as well; I only had to replace them about a month ago. The cleats are decently recessed, making it actually fairly straight forward to walk in them, handy if you’re just popping out to the shop.

                The edges are significantly raised on the inside of the foot, providing coverage for your ankle bone. The reason for this will not seem immediately obvious to all you road types, but it’s to prevent you smashing your ankles on the edges of the cranks when jumping etc. and for me it’s a welcome touch. The soles have lasted extremely well, still showing most of their tread pattern, and the construction is first rate, showing no signs of stitching or material failing at this moment in time.

                There are a few well-placed vents on each shoe, and whilst I appreciate that for racing this may come in handy, this has translated into having pretty wet feet when the weather turns poor. That’s the only thing really letting the side down here. Aside from that, for the money they’re pretty spot on.

Score: 8/10

To Sum Up: good general purpose shoes, well thought out. Waterproofing would be nice as would a colour other than white, but for fifty quid, you can’t have everything…

Schwable Marathon Plus Tyres

Tech

Price: £25.99 per tyre

From Where: Chain Reaction Cycles (chainreactioncycles.com)

Tech Spec: 700cc by 28

Duration of Test: Rear approx. 18 months, possibly longer, front 10 months

                I’ve been through a lot of road bike tyres. Living along the route of one of the country’s longest pub crawls with the largest student population in the country certainly puts them through their paces. There’s nothing like the howl of frustration as you pull another shard of broken glass in the heaving February rain at 7am on a Monday to set the tone for your week. That’s not even taking into account the appalling quality of the roads in Leeds, and the other general detritus that is the general enemy of the morning cyclist. However, I genuinely believe that the search is over for the perfect road/commuting tyre.

                 Schwable make these tyres in a variety of sizes and widths ranging from standard road sizes down to 20 and 16 inch for folding bikes, so depending on what you’re looking for, you should be able to get some that suit your purpose. I’ve got them in 700cc (for a standard road bike size wheel) and in a 28 width, which is a little wider than your average road bike tyre, as it takes some of the road buzz out of the ride and it’s a bit less jarring going through potholes. Schwable say they’ve got something called “Smart Guard” which basically means that the top of the tyre has about 8mm of extra rubber built into it. Whilst this does increase the weight (see my coaster brake review for my thoughts about weight freaks), what it basically means is that you can push a drawing pin all the way into the top of the tyre without causing yourself a puncture.

                In the 3000 or so miles that I have done on the back tyre and the 1600 on the front I have never (touch wood!) had a flat. Ever. Not one single puncture, and as anyone who has ever tried to fix a flat in the snow on his way to work can attest to, you cannot put a price on that. The tread pattern is excellent, predictable even in the poorest road conditions (last year’s snow for instance!). I have even taken the tyres off road at one point (owing largely to some terrible route planning decisions) and they even performed relatively well in wet and muddy conditions. The tread is extremely long lasting as well, surviving the last four months of skids with the coaster brake, with little sign of giving out any time soon.

                They can accept up to 120psi, but I typically keep mine pumped up to 100 and this seems perfectly adequate. They’re also equipped with a reflective band all the way round on both sides. I can’t say how well this goes towards upping you’re visibility, but as far as I’m concerned, the more the merrier when it comes to stuff like that. My one tiny niggle would be that owing to the extra amount of rubber that’s gone into their construction, they’re a bit of a nuisance to fit the first time round, but seeing as you’ll never have to take them off your bike, this isn’t really a problem.

Score: 10/10

To Sum Up:  These tyres are the shit. I cannot sing their praises highly enough. If they made these in a size that I could put on my cruiser, I’d be running them on that as well, but unfortunately they don’t. if you need a dependable road/commuter/fixed tyre, look no further.

Velosteel Coaster Brake Hub

Velosteel Coaster Brake Hub

Tech

Price: $83.00 (this was including shipping to the UK from the US) and I think I paid about £12.00 import tax on top of that

From Where: www.elegantwheels.net

Tech Specs: 36 Hole, OLD 130mm, 16t cog

For those of you who never had one on your bike as a child (not going to lie, feeling kind of sorry for you about that) a coaster brake is an older piece of bicycle technology, allowing the rider to brake by pedalling backwards (it is sometimes referred to as a back-pedal brake), and there the sort of thing that used to get fitted to old school BMX bikes, and still do get fitted to town/beach cruiser bikes. Head to Amsterdam for the day and I guarantee you’ll nearly be killed/forced to jump into the canal by at least five or six of these. Rather than me try and explain the working of the thing, it would be best to go here for the skinny:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaster_brake#Coaster_brakes

 

The shop in question does these reconditioned hubs in a variety of spoke hole drillings and over lock nut dimensions (that’s the rear frame spacing to you and I), in just about every permutation you could ask for. I got mine for a 36 hole rim and at a 130mm standard road bike spacing. The flanges are the same on each side and equidistant from the hub centre, making the wheel much easier to build without the need for dishing, which as far as I’m concerned is an absolute God-send as I do not own a wheel jig. Same size spokes for each side, boom! Job done.  The hubs are equipped with a standard fixed gear style threaded cog and lock ring, so although you’re asked to specify which cog size you want (I’m running a 16t, 36t front ring) you could in theory swap it for an after-market upgrade in whatever size takes your fancy. The guy there (coincidentally called Guy) is extremely knowledgeable about all things retro bike related, so if you’re not sure, ask him and he’ll be able to point you in the right direction. They also do the hubs in a variety of colours/finishes, I got mine in chrome a) because it looks mint and b) because the finish stands a better chance of surviving a British winter.

                Straight out of the package, I’m really digging the finish, the chrome was definitely the right choice. My other first impression upon handling the thing is that it is pretty heavy, but when you take into account the fact that the whole hub contains a full breaking mechanism this is not really that surprising. Given that the current trend is to have everything super light-weight, in a variety of naff colours, I can imagine that there are those of you who are going to be put off intensely by this statement. But then again, if you fall into this category, you probably won’t read the rest of this review, go and furiously shave your legs and then head out for a 70km ride, snorting derisively to yourself about people who don’t have carbon fibre headset spacers, pausing only to expel the contents of your nose every time you reach a set of traffic lights.

                Right, so now that the weight conscious have left to talk seriously about carbs, let’s get down to brass tax. Like I said, the thing was a doddle to build into a wheel and it definitely feels solid. The c clip which anchors the braking arm to the frame supplied was way too large for any modern road bike frame, however, I managed to bodge this pretty easily with a length of old grip and some electrical tape. I have since picked up a correctly sized c clip from a local hardware shop for the massive sum of about 16 pence, so I’m not really considering this to be a massive problem.

                It took an awful lot of getting used to, including spectacularly eating shit on more than one occasion at a junction, but now that I am, I absolutely love the thing. The fact of the matter is that it is not an instinctive reaction to apply pressure to the back foot in order to stop, but once you’ve worked out the subtleties of it is beautiful to behold. The problems I remember from my bikes as a kid just simply aren’t there; it’s never locked up and it never skips. The engagement is smooth and positive every single time. A lot of coaster brakes suffer from having no modulation to their braking – that is to say, they’re either locked on, or not engaged at all. For the Velosteel, this does not appear to be the case. The braking is certainly not as instantaneous as a cantilever or disc brake, but it was never going to be, and without a rear cable, my road bike certainly looks a lot cleaner than it previously did. I’ve been running it now, eight miles a day for about four months in pretty horrendous conditions (this is the North of England after all) and I’ve felt no need to adjust it. This is the beauty of the coaster brake system – unlike discs and canti brakes, the performance is not affected by the rain and all the parts are stored within the hub. The finish is still perfect; no mean feat given how much I intensely dislike cleaning my bike.

                I still have a front brake as back up, and I’m afraid there’s no escaping that fact. I have ridden home without the front brake when I snapped cable, but I certainly feel safer with it than without. The fact of the matter is that people these days seem more interested in looking at their smart phones than checking the traffic, so it’s always good to have a backup. But do you know what the best thing is about it? You can do skids! And for just a moment on a rainy ride home I remember a little of what it used to feel like when all we did was rode for fun, and you can’t put a price on that.

Score: 9 / 10

To Sum Up: What a quality piece of gear. The only thing keeping this from a ten is the weight, but as my name isn’t Norbert and I don’t still live with mother, I’m not letting this worry me.

Hello

My name is Owen, I'm 26, from London originally, but I've been living in Leeds for sometime now. in this blog i intend to write equipment reviews, climbing and bicycle gear mostly, as I've been doing these things for pretty much my whole life.

Personally, i hate it when a reviewer simply regurgitates a company's blurb about their product - it's not helpful to the consumer. I want to know how well the product performs under pressure, pushed to breaking point. A magazine based reviewer will have had his pair of bike shoes for about a month, ridden in them three times and then be forced to make his judgement based on this. What happens after six months? How long is that jacket really going to stay waterproof for? You're parting with your hard earned money for this, so you want to get the most you possibly can out of it, so it's no good buying something that is going to fail eight months down the line.

Anyways, i hope you find this content useful, and if you don't, please let me know, as i can't improve if people don't tell me. Full apologies for the quality of my photography in advance!

Thanks
Owen