Sidi women's road cycling shoe using three-bolt cleat.

1980s cycling shoe with leather and nylon mesh uppers, leather sole, and adjustable shoeplate, for use with quill pedals

Adidas mountain cycling shoe using two-bolt SPD-style cleat for clipless pedal.

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Cleats, Shoes

Cycling shoes are shoes designed for cycling. They come in a variety of designs depending on the type and intensity of the cycling for which they are intended. more...

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Key features include: rigidity, for more-efficient transfer of power from the cyclist to the pedals; weight; a method of attaching the shoe firmly to the pedal; and adaptability for use on and off the bicycle. Most shoes can be adjusted while in use, via quick-adjusting straps that have largely replaced laces.

Cycling shoes come in four basic variants, for road racing, touring, off-road or mountain biking, and spinning . Shoes for road cycling have an extremely smooth, rigid and inflexible sole, bent slightly at the ball of the foot to allow power to be transferred and focused at that point. The quality of the shoe depends on the rigidity and durability of the sole, breathability, and overall weight of the shoe (the lighter the better). Road shoes normally have no treads, and a protruding cleat for attaching to the clipless pedal which makes them unsuitable for walking. Touring shoes sacrifice some rigidity for traction and add treads and a recessed cleat, so that the rider can both walk and cycle effectively. Mountain biking shoes have a recessed cleat and studs along the sole so that riders can negotiate difficult terrain off their bikes. Mountain-style cleats are generally smaller than road-specific cleats. Spinning shoes, a recent development, are a hybrid of road and touring shoes, with a firm sole and limited traction. The material of the spinning shoe is lighter and thinner, to maximize comfort, coolness and breathability.

Modern cycling shoes are designed to work as part of clipless pedal systems. Such systems directly attach the shoe to the pedal for maximal efficiency of power-transfer, using a cleat on the bottom of each shoe and a matched fitting on the pedal. Several manufacturers produce these systems; consequently, modern shoes usually have threaded holes in the sole in various arrangements to attach cleats from different manufacturers.

An older system is the toe-clip and strap, which is a metal cage attached to the front of the pedal, into which the rider inserts the shoe. There are two methods for using pedals with toeclips. The first is a cycling shoe with a slotted shoeplate. Before the introduction of the clipless pedal most racing shoes had a hard leather or plastic sole to which a metal or plastic shoe plate or cleat was attached. This cleat had a slot that mated with the pedal. The cleat along with toe clip and strap keep the rider's feet firmly to the pedals. The drawback is that a rider had to reach down and loosen the toestrap by hand to take their foot out of the pedal, and for this reason toeclips have been made largely obsolete by clipless pedals. The second is to use a cycling shoe with a smooth sole or a non-cycling shoe. This had the disadvantage of the rider's feet not being firmly attached to the pedals but had the advantage of being able to release from the pedals without having to loosen the strap by hand, and also any shoe can be used.