Postby sb944 » Thu Feb 14, 2013 10:38 am
I'm wrapping up this test. I'd set PB's on all my segments, and was going to have a better run at the national park on Tuesday, but it was raining when I left home, so took the cheap bike and shoes out in the rain. Yesterday I did manage one PB up a hill that took me from the teens to 7th on strava, without really trying it as a segment, just spinning hard up it. I also had a go at the national park, but not the same longer route this time, as the wind was playing up, so I thought that route might be better. I did manage a 7 second PB there, on a 7:40 segment, which isn't bad, but only 1.5% decrease overall.
So, I did get all my PB's I tried in the week since getting the new shoes, and I think that shows a performance boost, although only one segment was over 3% reduction in time, so it's still slightly debatable. With the biggest time reduction of 5%, it's unlikely going from even cheap clipless shoes to premium ones results in anything above 2-3% at most, with all that lovely carbon under your foot rather than rubber.
What I have noticed is much higher top speeds on my segments, sometimes in the order of 13%, often close to 10%. It's theoretically possible the shoes are allowing me to go 12% quicker as a max speed, but the drawback is my legs and lungs aren't fit enough to handle that extra speed increase, so the overall segment times are only slightly better off. I'm not sure what I think about that theory, but in that case I'm very happy, as I can play catch up with my legs and lungs now.
But there are many other pluses. No matter what type of trip, the bottom of my feet are very noticably more relaxed after a ride now. So much so, it feels like I rode in the old shoes, then got a foot massage after the ride. Also high cadence is a dream in these. I've started spinning up hills I used to stand on, and beating my PB's doing that (eg yesterdays hill), which I couldn't do before. In fact my habits are rapidly changing from standing up all steep hills for power, to spinning for speed, and standing only to break things up, mainly on shorter sections where there is a change of gradiant. I love that. Also, I tried my first "fast" bunch ride in these shoes today, which usually goes OK, buts ends with my ankle and knees feeling a little tender. Both feel great so far, which is 80% of why I wanted to upgrade my shoes, to avoid slowly deteriorating my knees and ankles as I do more kms at higher speeds in the future.
Hope this helps someones choice in the future.