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

Love it- great work. Let us know how they hold up!

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Speedplay is the devil.

Midsole cleats ? Do you use these for "normal"ridding purposes ?

midsole cleats it's quite popular in triathlon apparently.

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Happy Trails !!!
MTB / Giant Xtc '05 / 8.7Kg
ROAD / La Perla Negra - FM015 / 7.0Kg

Awesome!

That's awesome! How stiff are they compared to your normal road shoes?

I also really like the carbon toe warmers, I just wonder about breathability. You could use the carbon like you have done to make a bracket, and then perhaps glue some water proof breathable fabric in place. There is some pretty light stuff out there, like the 1.4oz per square yard cuben fibre (47gsm). A 10x15cm piece of that would come in around 0.7grams.

That's a pretty cool idea. You will be able to make some really cool stuff with carbon fiber!

Nice project. Thanks for sharing. First time I've seen midsole cleats.

I just made some custom commuter shoes last month. They're not weightweenie so I won't post them, but isn't it a fine feeling riding around in shoes you made yourself?

How did you source the carbon fiber? What was the process to mold and cure it?

Cool project!


Not that far back!
I ride "mid sole" (speedplays with the aluminium baseplate) as it saves my calves to run off the bike.
Makes a big difference, but I couldnt imagine riding with the cleats that far back. Would be very weird climbing out of the saddle!

Isn't a cleat positioned there gonna cause problems with toe overlap on the front wheel?

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Ti or dye!

The Weenie formally known as CAADHEAD

You have a point there. Looks like you would have a half a foot into the wheel area.

Have you ridden these yet? I find that generation of f50's to be extremely flexible and generally unsupportive. Not sure how well they would translate to a cycling shoe.

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"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

Not to mention he probably has to really watch it in the corners as I would think it would be quite easy to catch the shoe on the ground if pedaling during hard cornering.

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Michael - The Anaerobic Threshold is neither...

Interesting project, but I would think mid cleats on such a flexible sole is not gona be much good.
I wouldn't like to pedal hard with my arches.