I love my bike shoes, despite their quirks. Both buckles are broken. Two of the four velcro straps have lost their velcroability and I continually push them back down as I ride, only to have them open again. The cleats are fully fused in place and I couldn’t readjust them if I tried. The grips on the bottom are shot. The padding is shot. I’ve worn a hole through at least four toes of the insoles. They are floppy and worn. And somehow, despite all that, they still function, and I love them.
And every year for maybe that last four years (maybe five, ha), I’ve said, “this year I think I’ll replace my bike shoes!”
But then I decide that I should wait until after winter to do so, because I don’t want new shoes right at the start of the mud-and-grime season. So I wait through the winter. And come spring, every year like it’s a totally new idea, I say “you know, I got through the winter okay, and these shoes still work… so, whatever, I don’t need new shoes yet.”
Yes, we all know I am particularly bad at buying things. But this is how I go year after year after year without replacing my bike shoes. No joke; these things are at least 10 years old. And I wear them, with few exceptions, every. single. day. Sometimes I fully abuse them, like the time I dragged my loaded bike bushwhacking halfway around a lake. Or when I hiked to a waterfall (or any other number of places) in them because they were the only shoes I had and I wasn’t expecting to hike. They have gone A LOT of miles.
And I love them because even at every failure point (the first broken buckle, the second broken buckle, the velcro that won’t velcro), they still keep working. I can still clip them into my pedals; they still stay on my feet; they still take me places. They have failed elegantly.
But the other day, I finally replaced them. With exactly the same shoe, because despite how fricken expensive they are, I love them, and I plan to wear these for at least the next ten years too, at which point I will have paid approximately $2 per month to wear them;)
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(what a difference 10 years makes, ha!)
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Yay new bike shoes! I am excited to fully appreciate this new purchase because it is so rare;)
Did your foot get smaller in ten years?!
Ha! The new shoes are actually a half size smaller, since my shoes have been ever so slightly too big, but I think mostly it’s a factor of the picture angle plus the extreme floppiness of my old shoes making them look big;)