The other month I thought about making a pair of super light road/mtb shoes from carbon, but it would've been just a bit to much for my experience with carbon at the moment, so the next best thing was to buy a pair of what is one of the lightest football boots out there (adidas f50 adizero) and convert them!
Its a bit easier for me to do this because I use SPD's and Mid Sole Cleats.
So, here's how it went:
First weight the shoes with insole and laces,
Right ~ 165
Left ~ 163
Next up is to trim the studs and try to make the bottom as flat as possible for the 7 layers of carbon.
16 grams saved from the trimming of the right, trimmed the left more.
Slap 7 layers of carbon onto the bottom and roughen them up for clear coat.
Put a couple of layers on the inside for the cleat fixings.
Weight without insoles and laces.
Needed to add a carbon wrap over and under the toe to help the carbon sole remain in contact with the plastic base (my first pair lifts off after months of walking around).
Clear coat. Should've done the toe wrap first.
Fit cleats and weigh.
Left 241g
Right 238g
Each shoe was just over 200g before cleats and fixings.
So, after all that work, I have a pair of race shoes which are nearly half the weight of my actual races shoes I have been using for years (modified mtb shoes)!
Because the F50's are so cheap on ebay (around £20/$30), I am going to get myself a few more pairs and make some summer ones with lots of vents, and I plan to see if I can remove the original plastic sole and save myself maybe 80g+ a shoe!
Because I was surprised how flexible a single layer of carbon is, I decided to finish of by making some toe warmers!
This one weighs 12.8g and is obviously not perfect, so I will have a few more tries and see if I can get it looking a bit nicer
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