Today Trek is announcing three new pairs of shoes. The Trek RSL Knit, Trek RSL Road shoe, and Trek Velocis shoe offer three price points but also a unified vision. The new shoes both follow trends and set new ones.
Over the last few years, cycling as a whole has been changing. It’s hard to say where it started, maybe frames or maybe wider tyres and wheels, but more and more there’s been a focus on the importance of comfort. The new offerings from Trek follow this trend while definitely introducing some new ideas to cycling shoes. As this shift to comfort continues, brands will generally frame it around racing. In reality, it might also be a recognition that not everyone races.
Whatever the reasons, more and more people are demanding comfortable gear and brands are responding. As we look at continued evolution in our list of the best cycling shoes there are going to be more options focused on comfort. Today’s announcement means there are three options from Waterloo that have an eye on fitting more people more comfortably. A big question is going to be how wild do you want to go?
MetNet is the unifying technology
High performance cycling shoes represent a collection of contradictions. Historically, the best performance came from a tight fit and limiting any movement between the shoe and the foot. The best way to handle those demands was to create a shoe that’s as solid as possible with materials that don’t stretch or shift over time.
The challenge with addressing that need is that humans are squishy and a collection of unusual shapes. Hard shoes with a tight fit with no stretch aren’t comfortable. For years the approach across cycling, and other sports, was to ask athletes to sacrifice comfort at the altar of performance. Cycling gear was either uncomfortable and fast or comfortable and slow.
Over the last few years, there’s been a whole new approach. Brands making all kinds of gear for cycling have started to realise that comfortable athletes are also faster. Trek is following that trend with this latest round of shoes and MetNet is the technology tasked with bridging the divide.
What Trek reports is that the pain points on shoes occur primarily in three places. The head of the first and fifth metatarsal and in the centre outside of the foot at the 5th metatarsal tuberosity. These are the spots the brand says become pressure points and lead to numbness, tingling, and…
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