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endura mt500 burner clipless offroad shoes

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

though it often appears as a disconnected oddity, the guardian newspaper has a history of featurng almost all of the international fashion shows. i say disconnected, because the reports and photos always seem to be placed adjacent to what might be termed 'more serious' news. though i have watched the meryl streep movie the devil wears prada, i still cannot fathom what the outfits seen on the catwalk have to do with real life.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

personally, i've never been a follower of fashion, and i'm pretty sure that mrs washingmachinepost would never describe me as fashionable' in any sense of that word. that's not to say, however, that i have not been seen in the very latest cycling kit, very much at the behest of the world's top cycle clothing purveyors. this occasional state of affairs can only be described as accidental. yet i think it's fair to say that cycling fashion comes from a different place than does gucci, prada and versace.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

a substantial portion of contemporary cycle fashion emanates from both a need and desire to be seen. and while much of it seems perfectly at home on the bicycle, i'm not sure that the public response would be quite so accepting if it were worn to walk down bowmore main street on a saturday afternoon. perhaps i might cite as an example, the brightly coloured endura mt500 footwear which has graced my feet recently. it's not often that a pair of shoes perfectly complement a fluorescent and lime green cyclocross bicycle, but for once, these are a perfect match.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

yet, when worn in debbie's for the requisite double-egg roll and soya latte, not one person on the premises made even passing mention. i'm almost certain that, had they been worn with a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, eybrows would have been raised. these are the very shoes i'd wear in the event of having to ditch in the sea, to ensure the helicopter would find me first.

but the colour (cocoa) is not the only brilliant thing about these shoes.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

before road racing became the predominant obsession of the cognoscenti, there was mountain biking, clothing for which scotland's endura were rightly renowned. yet throughout the 1990s, when the arrowed logo could be seen in a wide variety of offroad locations, they never made it as far as your feet (socks notwithstanding). this situation has been recently remedied with the release of three different styles of offroad shoe: the mt500 burner clipless shoe, an mt500 flat shoe, and last but not least, the humvee flat pedal shoe. while several of the sunday peloton opt for spd compatible footwear at all times, as a traditional luddite, i'm more inclined to opt for the usual three-point cleated shoe, the ones that make you walk like a duck.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

however, allied to the road-going genre, is cyclocross, perhaps even more so nowadays that the likes of wout van aert and mathieu van der poel have carved out successful careers in both disciplines. i am not a mountain biker by any stretch of the imagination (dude); there are no mountain bikes in the washingmachinepost bike shed. but there is a brightly coloured cyclocross bike, and personally, i can see little, if any, difference between the footwear required for either type of offroad excursion.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

first off, the mt500 shoe is available in less ostantatious colours than the orange/red combination seen here, but all share the same features, including the ergonomistry tech developed in conjunction with physiotherapist, phil burt. the shoe looks very much like a contemporary training shoe, but features a thick, stiff sole, the cleat inserts of which are covered by a bolt-on mini-sole, that would allow them to be worn as regular footwear should you fancy doing so.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

these are the very shoes about which i wrote recently, on which i placed the cleats in my usual fashion, as far forward as possible. slight calf-muscle discomfort enforced a re-appraisal of that choice, subsequently necessitating sliding the cleats a few millimetres rearward, a move that solved the problem instantly. the soles, according to endura, are designed to handle abuse, providing shock absorption along with reinforced toe and heel boxes. to test out the grip and abuse factor, i performed my wout van aert impersonation, by running up a gravel track while shouldering the bike. and, in what would obviously make for an excellent film title, that gravel track featured a river that runs through it.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

but aside from a necessity to successfully clip into whichever brand of pedals are affixed to your bicycle, there's the comfort factor to be taken into account. the insole is, as mentioned earlier, ergonomically designed to offer the maximum level of support and comfort, a task that it achieves with aplomb. when first worn, it's possible to detect through the insole, just where those cleats are positioned, but after a kilometre or two, that sensation subsides and we're right back to comfort and joy.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

laces seem to be the preferred fastening method for offroad shoes, as opposed to the boa-style closures featured on many road shoes. the mt500s arrive with two sets of laces: plain and stripey. the latter i saved for a later date. unlike other lace-up shoes in my possession, instead of a small elastic retainer midway along the tongue, to keep the laces away from thrashing chainrings, endura have solved the problem by means of a velcro strap on top of the shoe. this threads through a slot on one side of the shoe, allowing it to be tightened to the desired level. in practice, it works highly effectively.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

descriptions are all very well, but the proof of the pudding, to coin a phrase, is in the cycling. in this case over the course of a few hundred kilometres. aside from my inadvertent mis-positioning of the cleats on the first ride, the subsequent adjustment solved the discomfort engendered by the latter. of course, had i read endura's description: 'an off-set cleat box with increased longitudinal adjustment.', i could probably have sussed this out from the start. the shoes are commendably comfortable, with padding in all the right places to support my intrepid footwork.

endura mt500 burner clipless shoes

i've already mentioned my attempt to run up the middle of a rain-infested gravel path, but i also spent a few metres walking along what passes for an islay road, just to check my nifty footwork on grass and tarmac, in case the cleats were inclined to stifle forward movement. box successfully ticked. the shoes are well ventilated, lightweight and comfortable. it's possible that gonzo mountain bikers are a tad heavier on their footwear than yours truly, but the sturdy construction looked as if it could withstand extended periods of scrabbling amongst the undergrowth.

for their first venture into the footwear market, endura would appear to have hit the ground running (if you'll pardon the pun). this mt500 burner clipless version would suit both cyclocrossers and gravellists as well as the bouncy farm gate brigade, and probably work every bit as well south of the border as they do up here.

endura's mt500 burner clipless offroad shoes are available in sizes ranging from 38 - 47 and in black, cocoa (as reviewed, size 44), forest and navy. price is a very affordable £129.99.

sunday 13 march 2022

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................