My Five Ten Sam Hills are awesome shoes, but for whatever reason my Schlumpf hub gear shifting technique has always been ankle bone based. I’m changing gears a lot more on the 24″ GUni, like a two speed dune buggy, and in the off road environment it’s often with minimal advance warning so to speak. The gear shifts need to be on tap – comfortable, fast, clean and reliable. The ankle bone method isn’t comfy at times and due to the relatively small contact area mis-shifts can occur.
Sticky rubber soles on shoes for mountain biking? Who would have thought of that? Jeff Steber of Intense Cycles, that’s who. The genius behind some of the sport’s most iconic bikes came up with the idea and with the technology already employed by Five Ten, then just a climbing shoe manufacturer; they brought out one of the first collaborations in mountain biking. But it would be nothing less than a revolution in the way many of us ride our bikes.
When you think of sticky rubber and shoes, you almost instinctively think of Five Ten and for good reason; they pioneered its application into mountain biking and did it way before any one else. 2011 is a big year for Five Ten, who only a few years ago started out with one shoe in two options and now have a range of 8 MTB shoes (and growing) in a whole boat load of options to suit all requirements and tastes. We’ve been fortunate enough to have had a few shoes from the 2011 range to put through their paces and first up, are these rather nifty looking numbers…
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