The fit

Initially the shoes felt weird, switching from my FiveTen shoes to the Crossmax it was noticeable how much stiffer and narrower they were than my usual riding footwear.

The Crossmax aren’t exactly the most comfortable shoes either, I had some aches in the arch of my foot and finally ended up running the insoles from another set of shoes for the most comfort.

In the heel area they also feel shallow and this is really noticeable when off the bike, especially running or walking the bike uphill where the word ‘flip flop’ springs to mind. To counter this I’ve clamped the ratchet up to 11 to get the shoes to feel like they want to stay on my feet.

How do they ride?

I’ve been testing the Crossmax shoes for a couple of months on my local (XC+) trails and I have to say I’ve started to gravitate towards them, once I had them feeling comfy I remembered the benefits of a good SPD shoe (which these clearly are), although I would be more inclined to purchase a full-on ‘dancing shoe’ (slimline SPD shoe) for that style of riding. So arriving in Finale Ligure on Monday I was keen to test these enduro specific shoes on some of last year’s Superenduro trails.

Sadly after two days of riding the more technical ‘real’ enduro tracks these enduro specific shoes are not for me. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with them though, as far as clipless shoes go these work fine, they connect man to bike and are constructed very well, it’s just that you need to be a very confident rider to tackle trails such as those of the Superenduro series, and with the addition of clips, that I am not. Using them has not made me a French Enduro God.

My style of riding is vaguely fast, possibly out of control, loose, ragged feet flying around helping me scuff my way through tech sections, it’s ugly but works for me. Being clipped-in does not help my riding and despite the added efficiency in climbs there are virtually no benefits to me on the downhill sections.

These shoes look good, provide a good, secure connection between foot and bike and have as-yet not shown any signs of degrading. If you want to race enduro clipped-in then these are definitely a good option, but for more general XC riding stick to one of Mavic’s other shoes.

More information: Mavic Crossmax shoes
Price: €165