Speed Demon Bike Shoe Among Lightest Ever Built

The big international bike brouhaha that is the Eurobike trade show opened today, and with it a flood of fancy new products gushed forth upon the cycling world. We’ll be covering hot items from Eurobike and Interbike, the U.S. bike show in Vegas in two weeks, over the coming days. One thing that caught our attention already is the Octane SL III from Pearl Izumi, a svelte cycling shoe that has “adopted the technology that goes into running shoes, focusing on comfort and lightweight characteristics,” according to a PI rep.

It looks lean and light, and the company specs the shoe at an airy 195 grams — less than 7 ounces! — per foot in a Euro size 42. That’s crazy light. How’d they do it? Well, PI touts “welded monomesh” and a “uni-directional carbon power plate” as the ingredients. Of course!

But really, this is a sick shoe for which the company basically skimmed and trimmed features back to only the essentials. Light materials like the mesh upper and carbon sole make it work, and fit comes from a foot-hugging design and a supple synthetic fabric touted to give the same comfort and stretch as a high-end leather.

Killer. Can’t wait to test ‘em out. Too bad we’ll have to stall a while — the shoe comes to bike stores this winter (Feb. 2012) and costs a wallet-emptying $350.

—Stephen Regenold