Plenty of people bike around town, on trails or on the road without using special shoes meant just for cycling. Then again, most of them are not people who are training for a triathlon. If you haven’t yet invested in a pair of quality cycling shoes for your triathlon event, here are a few reasons to consider it.
They Can Keep You Out of Pain
In a triathlon, every move you make can mean the difference between beating your personal best time or not. If you’re wearing shoes that hurt your feet, you’re naturally going to compensate to try to take away the pain. By investing in a pair of cycling shoes that fit well on your feet and are meant for the motion of cycling, you could end the race pain-free.
They Can Make Your Pedal Strokes More Efficient
When you’re on a leisurely ride around town, you’re probably not overly concerned with the speed at which you get somewhere. When you wear regular shoes, you’re putting force on the pedals in a downward direction, but you’re not getting any additional assistance on the upward portion of the pedal stroke. When you have cycling shoes with toe clips, on the other hand, you have shoes that stick to your pedals, meaning you’ll be adding force to the pedals on the up stroke as well as the down stroke. That can really impact your race time. Since cycling shoes tend to be very lightweight, that reduction in weight can speed up your race time as well.
They’ll Be Easier to Adjust On the Fly
(This needs to be revised. There are no triathlon shoes with laces, they only have Velcro straps. If there are any out there they are very old school and people don’t know about them. This paragraph can be instead about speed and fastening the single strap on the fly. Usually triathlon shoes have 1 strap or one main and a small one so you only have to adjust 1 strap.)If performing at your best is a priority for you during your triathlon event, you owe it to yourself to get a pair of cycling shoes that fit well, work well with your bicycle and are simple to stop and adjust in just a few seconds.
