Interbike 2012: Pearl Izumi X Project Mountain Shoes

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Pearl Izumi is impressing the jaded masses at the Outdoor Demo and Interbike with the launch of their X Project line of shoes (not to be confused with X-Factor – those ones would have more sparkly bits). It also helped that Pearl Izumi was fitting people with demo shoes for runs out at the Outdoor Demo yesterday.

 

We'll be off to try these next month in the company of Mr Brian Lopes.

 

The core of these shoes is the complex sole. A tapered, unidirectional carbon fibre plate is embedded in the molded sole. What does this do? It allows the sole of the shoe to stay rigid and efficiently transfer power when you need it—when you’re pedaling. Yet, it also lets the sole of the shoe actually flex at the toes when you step off the bike.

 

 

In a selection of fruity colours

 

Other features of these shoes include shock-absorbing foam in the heel to reduce fatiguing foot impact when you first hop off the bike. The rubber tips on the soles aren’t just glued on. They’re molded into the sole, so they’re not likely to easily rip off.

 

pearl izumi x project
You can see the carbon plate at the cleat and in the heel, and the co-molded rubber tips.

 

 

 

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Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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Comments (2)

    Any of those not mega vented? Sort of 3 season in a day on the hills UK specific?

    They’re Pearl Izumis – so they’ll mostly be made of vents 🙂
    I’ve been trying to educate them in the world of cold and wet, but they won’t listen… Jon’s test riding some in a week or so, so we’ll see.

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