A few people laughed a little when I first started showing a “gravel race” shoe, but they were pretty quick to pick up a pair after seeing them up close. It turns out that having a shoe that’s stiff, crazy light, sharp looking, and still easy to walk around in is a good fit for a lot of riders. While watching Monica try and get across small creek crossings in actual road shoes was hilarious, our rides are much more pleasant now that she can confidently walk across them. Same with a quick swing into the store for a mid-ride beverage or gas station doughnut. Some folks use these as their XC shoes, and that’s a good solution as long as you don’t need to scrabble up a bunch of slick rocks. Others are using them as their road shoes since the performance and weight are there, and they can walk around with ease. While these shoes are surely great for gravel racing, they are probably sold even more as a do everything on skinny tires shoes.
The beautiful carbon plate provides a 10 out of 12 on the stiffness scale, and these are built around a regular SPD cleat. The tread is made of lightweight TPU, not rubber. It’s grippy enough to walk through the grocery store, or up a short piece of trail, but it’s insanely light. The two-way BOA is a nice touch and makes adjustments on the fly a breeze. The construction has a little more robust build which is super handy with things get muddy and cold, but they do just fine midsummer. You get the overlap construction that’s trickling down from the S-PHYRE line and showing up on even more shoes moving into 2021. We build our shoes and pedals as a system, so the lugs mate perfectly with our M8100, M9100, M9120, and M8120 pedals. As with all of our shoes we offer a 60 day money back fit guarantee, but I haven’t had to process one of those yet.
I’ve done bit of trail riding, the short route of the Dirty Spokanza, the Midnight Century, and a bunch of road and mixed surface riding since I got these. Half of my crashes last year were on trails that my gravel bike had no business being on. While road and groad isn’t my home base, I’ve found that I really enjoy the freedom to go weird places and explore new areas in my backyard. With all this variety the RX8 just keeps being comfortable, stiff, light, and kind of an afterthought. I think that a lot of bike accessories are best when you can’t really tell that they’re there, they just do exactly what they’re supposed to do. Anyways, both Monica and I love these shoes and I think you will too.