The Devil Wears White Shoes

Did I need new cycling shoes? Absolutely not. In fact, as I rode that day I planned a product review post for my one year old Specialized road shoes. A year seems like a good long time to get to know intimately one’s cycling shoes. My review would be quite positive: light, comfortable, not too expensive, great Boa tensioning system. Would I regress into the long (and tedious) tale of shoes past, my old leather Marresis from Italy-shoes so great they deserve a post all their own or my Le Mond Carnacs or my second pair of blue and yellow Carnacs?

I may have issues with cycling shoes. Not an Imelda Marcos collection issue, more along the lines of a Jewish mother’s thinking that no prospective-woman-is-good-enough-for-her-son sort of issues. Do I need to explain who is the mother, son or prospective woman in this?

Riding is a good time to work these complex subjects over, my brain is using only lower functions to ride… dog!… faster fat boy… gun check… piss off!… other sectors of brain can freewheel on things subconsciously. I do some of my best thinking on a bike.

Before I ride home I wheel into Corner Cycle, my local shop to pick up cleat covers. It’s summer and the shop is crammed with people and bikes as I enter. I clip clop in, sweating profusely. George, the owner, approaches and asks the sort of unbidden question we all love (and fear) to hear. “What size shoes do you wear?” He leads me to a quiet back corner of the shop and pulls out the White Sidis. Too large for him, barely used, do I want them? Do I want them? Sweet Jesus……..the White Sidi Ergo 2, gleaming uber-white, shoes so Italian they have three different buckle systems per shoe. Past lust springs anew in my bosom. I’m safe from this lust as I know these are too expensive, they won’t fit and I already have nice shoes. George confers with his computer and quotes me a wickedly huge discounted price. Gulp. Still sweating from the ride, I slide feet into the white devil slippers. Whew, too snug on the left foot, “Sorry George, thanks for thinking of me.” My brain is still in low function and now “tazed” by this turn of events, I can’t deal and ride home.

Two days later, like an overgrown pervert sneaking into a peepshow in broad day light, I make my furtive return. A flurry of fittings ensue: with insoles, without insoles, different socks, different buckle system tensions, repeat ad nauseam.

The good news is, I’ll have another high end pair of shoes to compare to my Specialized shoes in the Great Product Review Posting, one year hence. The bad news is, these are so damn white all my short white socks look highly dingy, I can’t stop shaving my legs now and these shoes may be too snug(*?!).

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16 Replies to “The Devil Wears White Shoes”

  1. Those are some sweet shoes, brother! I can’t believe how sweet that finish looks, and how amazingly perfect those shots of red are placed on those shoes! That is some serious Italian sweetness! DAYUM!

    Hell, if they’re too snug for you, I’ll take ’em off your hands…

  2. I had the same dilemna this week. A customer had won a heap of Specialized gear, including some white S Works shoes, which he offered to me for below our cost price. They were 44s, which is my size in Sidi, but in Spesh I need a 43. The temptation to take them was almost too much. Plus I’m kinda into my Sidis, even though I’m badly in need of a newer, whiter pair! In the end our boss swapped them for some rims for the guys fixie.

  3. Speaking of all things Sidi ,
    New bike = new shoes.The new Dragon SRS Carbon Sidi MTB are in stock in my size. They are bright bright red. Don’t know if I can do it. I don’t think it would be long before my name was Dorothy.

  4. @K Man
    My recollection of “Wizard of Oz” is shakey at best, but I don’t remember the part where Dorothy shredded a big-ass descent and used all 130mm of travel in her front suspension before hucking off a cliff and doing a back-flip in her red Sidi’s.

    My point is, I think you can do the red Sidi’s without looking like Dorothy.

  5. Frank,

    You haven’t seen his collection of ‘riding dresses’ though…

    Dude, get those shoes, they look mint. Well, raspberry maybe.

  6. I kind of like the white, but they were too white for me without much other flair. I went with the Steel/Lux rainbow colors. They are pretty wild, even spiffier than my 2007 Genius 6.6’s in white/silver. Great shoes, though I’m still working on cleat placement, sock thickness, and insoles to get them just right.

    Anyone else have sizing issues with the newer Ergo 2s? I’d worn 43 in Sidis until now, but needed 42s in these. Are Sidis, like a lot of clothes in the U.S. “growing” so that the ever-growing Americans don’t feel as if they themselves are growing? I keep on having to size down in clothes. Soon I’m going to be in womens!

  7. White shoes are baller, son. Straight fucking baller.

    But you know what’s more baller? Custom shoes in any color scheme.

  8. @pizzabagelpassista
    I got some white Shimano’s, baby wipes work pretty well on the synthetic leather bits but they’re greying slightly on the mesh sections. Anyone popper theirs in the washing machine as you might with trainers?

  9. @Chris

    @pizzabagelpassistaI got some white Shimano’s, baby wipes work pretty well on the synthetic leather bits but they’re greying slightly on the mesh sections. Anyone popper theirs in the washing machine as you might with trainers?

    I actually called Sidi to ask about the washing machine, and they said not to. Like VERY not to. I tried dish soap and an old tootbrush, wasn’t stellar, and then the shoes were too wet to ride for a day. The synthetic leather is easy enough to clean, but the mesh is damn near impossible.

  10. @pizzabagelpassista
    I’ve had the same trouble. My approach is as follows:

    I always wear something over them in bad weather – wool belgian booties if its raining, neoprene in the real cold (neoprene sucks if it ever gets wet, loses its insulating properties from what I can tell.) That keeps them nice, but if I have to, I’ll soak them overnight in laundry detergent and hot water and they come out looking spiffy. They take a lifetime to dry, though, so I hang them from my mountainbike and try to time it so I won’t be riding the next day so they can dry.

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