My wife is out of town this weekend participating in a fun marathon relay. Fortunately, she has left me a list of things to do. THis is one of them.
My wife is having trouble finding cycling shoes that fit well. She is looking fior road or tri specific shoes. She wants to wear her superfeet inserts in the shoes.
The problem she describes is that she has a narrow heel (probably two of them) although according to her not particularly narrow for a woman. She is looking for a shoe that will allow her to use the inserts and still hold her heel locked in. She believes that some of the manufacturers simply take a man’s shoe and make it smaller to fit women rather than adjusting the shape of the shoe to reflect the fact women often have a heel that is narrower than a man’s for the same size of foot.
Have any of the women ST’ers encountered this problem and found a shoe that solved it?
I am off to put a check mark on the list and then a nap.
Haven’t encountered this problem myself, but a few customers I know have. Sidi’s road shoes are very narrow in the heel and hold your feet quite well. I have some and love them. That said though, the shoes are very snug and narrow fitting everywhere and some people don’t like that. If depth is an issue because of the inserts, tri shoes may be the answer. I find that most tri shoes have a bit more depth to them.
Keep in mind that any cycling shoe should be snug. The foot should not be able to move around in there and almost all cycling shoes will stretch a little with use. A cycling shoe should feel different than a normal shoe. They aren’t made for walking around and if there is movement of the foot inside the shoe, that can create blisters and “hot spots.”
In my opinion, your wife needs to take her superfeet to a shop and try on every shoe they have in her size until she finds the right fit for her. I think it may be difficult for you to find shoes that will fit her because you won’t be wearing them!
Specialized came out with a women’s tri shoe in the last year. I had spoken with a woman from Specialized at a large bike shop event and they are doing a lot of women-specific design with regard to bikes, shoes, and saddles. I haven’t tried the shoes yet, but plan on it.
I use Sidi women’s road and mtn. bike shoes with full-length orthotics and find them pretty comfortable. My heel is held down well and there’s enough room in the shoe for my orthotics. I don’t know how orthotics compare depth-wise to Superfeet insoles, though. My original orthotics were too thick and didn’t work in my Sidis, so they had to be thinned down a bit. She should definitely grab her Superfeet and try shoes on, especially Sidis, which run on the small size. I pretty consistently wear a U.S. 8 1/2 women’s shoe and a 39 European, but use a 41 1/2 in the Sidi. Speaking of 1/2 sizes, Side makes their women’s shoes in 1/2 sizes (European) up to 42, I believe, but it seems like hardly anyone stocks the women’s 1/2 sizes. I ended up getting mine online from Lickton’s Bikes in the Chicago area. Hope this helps!
I also love my Sidi’s.
The Shimano women’s shoes are also quite narrow in the heel (that’s my big problem with finding cycling shoes too). I have some TR02’s which are really nice. In fact, the BEST set of cycling shoes I’ve ever owned for fitting me are the cheapo set of Shimano shoes that I got when I first started cycling … discontinued, of course!
oh i ran into that problem because i have a really wide foot, a narrow heel AND inserts. After buying about 7 pairs of shoes (5 of them for sale by the way, all new, all kinds or brands and 40.5) what has worked the best for me is the sidi road genius mega. Even that didn’t work as good as it does now when I was told how to appropriatly fasten them. The first 2 straps are as loose as possible, the last strap with the clip is a tight as possible. It is not perfect, but it is by far the best I have found so far. (she may not need the mega, but the concept of the 3 straps fastened properly)