Was reading about gluing a strip of old tyre to the exposed carbon midsole of an xc shoe for better grip for cx activities. Seems sensible in a way, anyone done it? Worried about knackering a fairly new pair of shoes! Guessing would use contact adhesive

Not done it with carbon soles but have done it on other boots.
Mainly as I’m a crap rider and it allows me to attempt technical climbs unclipped.
I refer to them as my chicken feet.

Shoo goo is a good adhesive as it stays flexible.

I do it to one of Mrs Stoner’s carbon soled triathlon shoes. Because like most triathletes her low speed bike handling is worse than bambi in stilettos with Parkinsons on ice.

The rubber is to provide grip while mounting/dismounting

Marginal Gains?

It might help with the step on/off clipping, none of my CX racing mates are doing it.

I wouldn’t expect it to hold up for long. But maybe it doesn’t need to.

It’s a very old trick from the days of toe clips and straps to improve grip and to allow the smooth sole of the shoe to grip the back side of the pedal.

There’s no really anything to be gained from doing it to modern spd shoes.

I would get some steel studs for the toes tho.

I was reading cx magazine and they were suggesting it so you can unclip left foot and still pedal, then unclip right and step through straight into stride. I definately find stepping through a lot faster/more fluid for fast flat hurdle sections but I’ve had a couple of dodgy unclip moments when practising!

Agree on the studs, really need to work on my running up hills first though!

I thought about doing this with my roadie shoes for when I can’t clip in quick enough in emergency situations, but never got around to it.
Let me know if it works.

That step through business is a bit of an affectation; with spds you can keep the left one engaged until you actually dismount anyway, just make sure your unclipping is done with conviction. You can even use your right foot to help the left unclip by tapping it out at the heel.

Falling while trying to step through makes a proper tangle of bike and rider.

A much more useful trick to work on is unclipping/dismounting from the right side as well..

and if you watch this vid really closely, see the way the front brake (Euro sytle on the left..) is used to help flick the bike up onto the shoulder…

It’s a very old trick from the days of toe clips and straps to improve grip and to allow the smooth sole of the shoe to grip the back side of the pedal.

Talking old tricks, a mate of mine used to tape a couple of 10ps to the underside of the pedal so he could get into his toe clips quickly for CX racing!

Falling while trying to step through makes a proper tangle of bike and rider.

I can confirm this! 😳