Photo by Brian Vernor

It’s been two years in the making. Two years of quiet development, Then, in July, keen eyes picked up on Levi Leipheimer, rocking new kicks with the Giro “G” logo matching the one on his helmet during the Tour de France. “Giro’s doing shoes?” was the big question.

Indeed they are. This past weekend and in advance of the Eurobike expo in Friedrichshafen, Germany, Giro invited LAVA to the launch of the 2010 Giro shoe line in Livigno, Italy, allowing us to test a range of road and mountain shoes that we’ll start seeing in stores in February. And to say the testing grounds were idyllic is insulting. Our mountain bike shoe testing excursion was led by offroad legend Hans Rey, and the following day’s road shoe test was a passage of the famed Stelvio Pass. It would be no token testing sesh.  

What’s First? The Last

For Giro, the message of what made the shoe special was what they put first: the last. The shoe’s last (or footform) is literally it’s eternal lasting impression of what the shape of the shoe is, and will often define the brand. Some go for a wider, fatter platform. Some go for shapely curves, some build in corrections. Often, once a rider finds a shoe matches his or her foot shape and volume, it’s earned a devotee for life.

“We all know what a pair of bad-fitting shoes can do for a ride,” said Giro’s Greg Shapleigh. “Our goal in entering the shoe market was to redefine fit, comfort and adjustability, as well as optimizing power. And we think we’ve done it.”

A series of last revisions were brought to the launch, illustrating the care (by way of 16 revisions) that went into creating a shoe with solid fit.

For Giro, the entry into the footwear realm is two years in the making. Giro hired senior industrial engineer Eric Horton, who quietly went about building a shoe from scratch, and that meant 16 iterations of a last. Looking at early prototypes, brought to Livigno for the media to peruse, it was visually a compelling feat. Some early versions had a very pointed toe, or offset lacing. Each had its foibles (can you imagine adjusting bike shoelaces late in a hot, long ride when the foot swells?) and were shelved. So Horton took his time; he took two years.

“Once you commit to a last, you’re in it for the long run,” Horton said. “Every aspect of the shoe is built on that. We didn’t pull the trigger on it until it was exactly what we wanted. It was to our advantage that we took our time to make it right.”

Once Horton and the footwear team settled on a shape, they began tooling. The lasts are all build on tools of half-size increments (39-48 for men, in half sizes to 46.5, and 36-43, in half sizes from 37.5 to 42.5).  Giro eschewed a cost-cutting tooling  practice of skipping some half size tooling, instead stretch uppers out to fit, which Giro says compromises the shape of the last.  Further, that specific tooling provision also makes a shoe precise within the millimeter, so no two shoes are different from box to box.

Giro’s medium-volume last fits a solid range of both American and European feet widths and volumes, and will be receptive to custom orthotics.

In production, Giro uses a Tejin microfiber upper in its top-shelf shoes, and says the last stays in the shoe twice as long as normal to maintain the shoe’s shape after the shoe has cooled.

An interesting note comes in the forefoot strap area; Horton designed a unique, sealed front end that won’t “wrinkle” when that lower strap is really wrenched down upon. It’s that wrinkling or folding that often causes pressure on the toe tops.

Lead designer Eric Horton took his sweet time—two years—to dial in the shape and fit of the new Giro line.

“When trying to close the shoe on someone with a low-volume foot, it’s hard to get the shoe to close over the toe with a break,” Horton said. “We put strategic seaming to get the shoe to fit and actually cinch down without having fabric wrinkle, which compromises fit and feel on the top of the toes.”

Easton Carbon Outsole

Conveniently, Giro has a family partnership with Easton Carbon. ‘They run ballistics carbon through to wheelsets and bars,” Horton said. Naturally, they’d be servicing the carbon soles of the Giro footwear line.

Easton provides three plate options on their shoes: the high-modulus EC90 SLX, a a 100 percent unidirection carbon (but lower modulus) in the EC90 and a 70 percent carbon/30 percent fiberglass EC70 carbon composite sole.

The stack height is 6.5mm, again on a neutral platform. A flatter cross section (that is, from side-to-side) allows the foot to “spill over”, without creating pressure points or hotspots, particularly on the medial or lateral edges of the foot—key for folks with wider feet that often experience those hotspots. “We think our sole is a new performance benchmark,” Shapleigh said.

To get that sole shape, Giro underwent biomechanical testing at PACE in Portland during development, placing sensors inside a prototype shoe (with a stiff aluminum sole), placing those with a rider on a bike treadmill, allowing for real-world load condition analysis. The video we watched was pretty compelling.

Super Natural, Easy Customization

But the real story is with the sockliner, or that removable foam footbed that comes stock in some shoes. In Giro’s top-end offerings (as well as available separately for purchase) the company introduces SuperNatural Fit Kit footbeds.

Giro sought the advice of Retul biomechanist Todd Carver for advice on design of the footbed, and what degree of varus (external) or valgus (internal) correction the shoe company could account for in the forefoot to help knee tracking. Carver’s advice: correct at the arch (to help create a strong, stiff platform), and let fitter be the determining factor.

LAVA tested the new Factor with an ascent up 48 switchbacks of the famed Stelvio climb in Alps of northern Italy.

“There certainly are those who need varus support, but I don’t believe it’s not that common; those that are have a lot of ankle flexibility,” Carver said. “There are currently lines of research that don’t recommend it, due to muscular recruitment.“

He found that many times, forefoot varus and valgus wedging to align the knee didn’t always work, as the source of pedal stroke issues don’t always originate at the foot. Carver said studies have cited pedal stroke examples from above the knee including right or weak hips and glutes. The result can be overloaded lateral quads, with the vastus medialis (VMO) muscles being effectively turned off, causing stroke imbalance.

So instead of introducing canting into the sole, or into the EVA foam sockliner for a “correction” that may not be necessary and could actually introduce issues, Giro says, its soles remains neutral. Giro’s goal with the SuperNatural sockliner is to simply fill any voids in the arch by offering three different arch volume inserts (neon yellow=low arch, orange medium=arch, red=high arch) which easily Velcro-attach to the sockliner’s underside, creating for a proper neutral, stiff lever. The EVA foam sockliner also has a slight metatarsal bump in the forefoot to spread the metatarsal heads, and are feature the woven-in X-Static anti-microbial treatment.

And they say for good reason they named the sockliner SuperNatural. “We think the natural position is the proper position,” Shapleigh said. “We’re on the same story of thinking as that of the running shoe industry toward minimalist running shoe designs. The outsole and platform is quite flat in that philosophy, as is the fact that the flat sole provides spillover allows for foot to splay and moving naturally. The goal was to simply start from neutral, and if you need it, you can add it, instead of having a shoe with it automatically built into the shoe, whether you want it or not—or whether you’re aware it’s built in.”

Horton qualified that forefoot canting is still worthwhile, but that it ought to remain with those who know what they’re doing: bike fitters. “Initially, we wanted to address the varus/valgus topic, and he guided us by saying starting neutral is the way to go. Yes, a varus/valgus adjustment may be necessary, but that’s best left to the fitter.

All that stated, Giro said the shoe also has volume accommodation for custom orthotics. And Giro’s midrange offerings will come complete with a standard-volume medium arch.

The Goods

So what’s the lineup? It all starts with the $350 Prolight SLX. Co-designed with heavy input from Levi Leipheimer, this is Giro’s top-shelf, and as the name implies, the brand’s bantamweight bruiser, weighing 205 grams per shoe in size 42.5.

Weight is trimmed by using titanium hardware, including ti d-rings for the straps (a savings of three grams), a lighter fabric (Teijin AG100 ultralight microfiber, a fabric unique to the bike industry that’s used most notably by Nike in the Mercurial Vapor soccer shoe) and option for a lighter sockliner (a neutral arch liner that sacrifices option for the SuperNatural Fit Kit… which is also provided with the shoe in a handy musette.

The Giro Prolight SLX attains superlight status only after each sole is weight and confirmed within three grams of 60 grams.

While it’s absent a buckle to cut weight, it was more of a technical directive from Leipheimer. “Levi just said keep it simple,” Horton said. “These guys are always crashing, and he didn’t want to have to stand by the side of the road because a buckle broke in a crash.”

The straps are built on an offset over the instep, for a reason: to move focal pressure from the first metatarsal, which tends to want to poke upward.  Horton said the offset has another benefit: It also makes for a snug medial shoe. “By when you pull on the strap, it really sucks up on the arch,” he said.

Critical weight savings also comes in the Easton EC90 SLX carbon sole; every carbon plate is weighed, and has to be within three grams of 60 grams to make SLX status. If it’s over, it’s not used (but instead of wasting it, the plate gets used in the Factor). The plate itself is 6.5mm thick, meaning the closer-to-pedal interface means use of short cleat bolts is recommended, and maybe even dropping your saddle a bit in parallel with a lower vertical foot position.

The shoe doesn’t sacrifice comfort, however, retaining a padded split-top tongue.

Next in line is the Factor. This $280 shoe has the same last and exists as a pro-level shoe, but is a bit more robust and plush, with an Italian-made ratchet buckle. The buckle has high and low fixing points to adjust for folks with high or full-volume feet. It also uses steel hardware throughout instead of titanium. It has a unidirectional carbon fiber sole like the ProLight SLX, but uses less high-modulus carbon than its lighter brother. It weighs in 245 grams per shoe, and like the ProLight SLX, comes with the SuperNatural Fit Kit.

The value offering in the line comes with the $199 Trans. It gets trickle down technology including the Italian buckle, last design and fit as the others above, but it uses a different microfiber upper, and instead uses an Easton EC70 carbon composite sole (70 percent carbon fiber, 30 percent fiberglass). The sockliner also is a standard neutral arch insert with Aegis anti-microbial treatment.  It’ll weigh 275 grams.

Giro addressed the women’s category with a debut of the Espada. It’s the sister shoe to the Trans, with similar material use. The biggest difference? Using a women’s specific last, which Giro says is generally narrower in the heel, and has slightly reduced volume in the toe height and forefoot volume. That will have two color options: white/silver and black/gold, and will also price at $199.

The Espada womens shoe is built on a women’s specific last, moving the forefoot volume down to accommodate the typical women’s foot.

The offroad offerings are also a point of pride for Giro, representing the company’s first win; Giro delivered its top-end mountain bike shoe to Leipheimer, the Code, just a few days before the Leadville 100. Levi went on to win the race in ‘em. The $279 shoe, which features the SuperNatural Fit Kit and has the same upper as the Factor road shoe, but is then welded with protective bonding through to give it some scuff and nick resiliency on the trail. An EC90 sole with dual-density lugs finishes it off. It will be available in magnesium/black, all-black or white/black.

Tested over through rock gardens, over wet rooty terrain and on hike-a-bike run-ups, the tread of the Code stood tough while remaining comfortable, in cleat and on terra firma.

Rounding out the MTB line is the $199 Gauge, A cost-plus offering, again with all the design cues, is absent the hotshot fabric and the customizable insert sockliner, while moving to to an EC70 carbon composite sole. Interestingly, the shoe weighs five grams less than the Code (345 grams) per shoe; a benefit coming from the absense of the welded-on upper protection found on the Code.

And the women are again represented, with the Sica; again going to the women’s specific last, with the same features at the cost-effective Gauge.

Test Ridden

Out on the roads and trails of Italy, what’s we find? The SuperNatural Fit Kit is a solution we’re surprised other’s hadn’t thought of earlier; a stiff lever (for optimal power) is why we go for stiff carbon soles, right? An arch support preventing the foot from flexing is key to that end. While we ran a medium-arch support, we can see those with high or low arches will find great value. The fact that they’re light foam supports means you can literally make adjusts on the road; just pop ‘em into your jersey and see what feels right, on the fly.

Given my admittedly limited mountain biking skill (which often matches that of many other XTERRA neophytes), I found myself doing hike-a-bike, both uphill and down some wet, rooty stuff that brought up visions of faceplants. In that regard, the Code’s carbon sole gave a bit of flex, since it doesn’t wear the longitudinal rib design of its road brethren, making it a runable  shoe for XTERRA or cyclo-cross. The snug fit of the upper didn’t slip in the heel, and there were zero hotspots.

The Factor road shoe, used during the climb up the Stelvio, was a champ; It was darn well light enough, even without being the line’s lightweight specialist. With all the pushing and pulling during the climb, I had every chance for my foot to find a hotspot. None found, at least on my foot. It was great for why I prefer to train with a buckled shoe versus a tri shoe; comfort. And on long, hard, cold, hot, wet, miserable rides, comfort is king.

As a triathlete, I’d look to the Prolight SLX (with its three Velcro straps) as a shoe I could use and get into quicker than a buckle system in triathlon. (Where does it say we all need to be wearing tri shoes in triathlons?) Some—myself included—often find the extra instep coverage of a three strap over a two-strap to be simply more comfortable. Again, comfort is something that can trump the five extra seconds it takes to get the shoe on.

Which leads to the question: where’s the dedicated tri shoe? It’s coming, Giro said, reiterating they wanted to focus on a core collection before expanding, mention that the tri shoe and an upper-end womens road shoe on par with the Prolight SLX are in the crosshairs for 2010.

The line, which will debut this week at Eurobike, will be available in February.