What Shoes Do You Wear Cycle Touring?
I'm going to first make this very simple, then get into the details.
Simple: you can wear any shoes cycle touring. If you're going on a short experimental cycle tour for beginners likely you don't even need to buy new shoes., just wear whatever you've got and whatever you usually cycle in.
My first bike tour was a 1,022 miles from John O' Groats to Land End (JOGLE). Back then, I was simply testing bike touring to see if I liked it. I didn't have anything fancy and cycled JOGLE in an old pair of cheap trainers and I was absolutely fine.
When Stew and I cycled the world we both wore SPD mountain bike shoes. This style of shoe is our favourite for cycling and what we'd recommend for touring. We like a more robust shoe with a hard sole which makes it slightly easier to get power through the pedals.
When it comes to an international cycling tour, or long-term cycle touring, I stand by what I said: you could wear any shoes you like. Plenty do it in trainers, or sandals.
Okay, let's get into the details...
In this article
- Shoes we’ve worn cycle touring
- The best shoes for cycle touring
- SPD cycle touring shoes for women
- SPD cycle touring shoes for men
- How many pairs of shoes do you carry on tour?
- How to choose the right cycle touring shoes for you
- Your questions on cycle touring shoes answered
Shoes we’ve worn cycle touring
Stew and I have a shoe we rate for touring: Shimano Mountain Bike Cleats. Later in this article, I share the exact ones we’ve worn, plus what we love about them and our review.
Before we get into that, though, let’s go through shoes we’ve worn on different cycling tours.
Trainers
For a beginner cycle tourist, don’t overthink shoes too much. A pair of trainers at the back of the cupboard will do for the first few rides. When you start getting more serious about distance, days on tour, or speed, then you can think about buying a new pair of cycle shoes.
SPD Cleats
We prefer to wear SPD cleats because you can actually walk in them, unlike road bike cleats. The cleat in an SPD is within the sole, so you’ve still got a flat shoe to walk on.
Granted, it’s not the most comfortable and you wouldn’t want to hike far on them, it’s enough that you can stay in your shoes for as long as you want to, within reason.
If weight was a big motivator for you, with SPD cleats, you could take only these cycle shoes on a trip, providing you just needed to potter around a small town, walk from a hotel to dinner, to the shop and back again.
The best shoes for cycle touring
In this article we've shared only the shoes we have genuinely bought and worn. The links to products are affiliate links so if you do buy we receive a small commission and we thank you for using it!
You can trust us. We only review items we use on long-distance cycle trips or hikes. Or, items that made the shortlist for our trip's kit list; all items were heavily researched by us.
SPD cycle touring shoes for women
Rated and worn by Zoe.
These Shimano trainers are my absolute favourite cycling shoes. I wore them for around 7,000 miles from Turkey to Vietnam.
I know they’re good shoes because they’re the second pair I took around the world. The first pair were not well-ventilated at all.
I still wear these shoes now that I’m back in the U.K., and I will buy them for as long as they’re around!
Shimano RP2W SPD-SL Women's Shoes
I love these Shimano shoes. I wore one pair on the first half of the trip and a new pair for the second. I'm still wearing the second pair now!
View ProductAdvantages:
- Ventilation: These shoes replaced the ones below because I needed ventilation. Our hotel room became a more pleasant place to stay without stinky shoes!
- Comfortable to walk in: Although the shoe’s sole is firm, it’s plenty comfortable enough to walk in.
- Lightweight: Stew and I wanted to keep weight down when we toured, and these shoes really helped with that.
- Waterproof enough: Although not waterproof shoes, I found these shoes quite brilliant in the rain. I didn’t even wear overshoes during the second half of the trip, and sometimes, it poured.
Disadvantages:
Laces: Although I did not have a problem with the laces, they did feel like they were getting quite brittle on the world cycling tour. It was probably the sun through Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan that did it, but in fairness, the shoes are still going strong today, original laces ‘n’ all! Let it be known, though, that I was a little worried the laces would break on me.
SPD cycle touring shoes for men
Rated and worn by Stew.
Giro Carbide R SPD Shoe
Stew wore these on our cycle tour from Vietnam to the UK. The shoes have ventilation, are comfortable to walk in and lightweight.
View ProductAdvantages:
- Ventilation: good ventilation for cycling up hills and warmer weather.
- Comfortable to walk in: although the shoe’s sole is still quite stiff, they are plenty comfortable enough to walk in.
- Lightweight: Stew and I really wanted to keep weight down when we toured, and these shoes helped with that.
Disadvantages:
- Not warm in winter weather: when we set off to cycle the world we never intended to see winter, but we got caught up in some icy conditions in China! Stew said his shoes didn’t keep his feet warm, but we’re not sure anything would’ve done.
- Not waterproof: these shoes were not the best in the rainy seasons, but Stew wore overshoes to compensate for rainy weather.
BBB Hardware Overshoes
We both loved these overshoes, but Stew especially loves them. When cycling in the cold and the rain overshoes make a huge difference to your comfort.
View ProductHow many pairs of shoes do you carry on tour?
If we’re going on a very short tour such as an overnight tour with a camp or hotel we generally take one pair of shoes each. This is because we like to keep our luggage as light as possible and we find the SPD Mountain Bike cleats are enough for us to talk around the hotel, to a restaurant to dinner and to the nearest shop for snacks or water.
On a longer tour, like the world cycling tour we took 2 pairs of shoes. The cycling shoes and a pair of shoes for off the bike.
Touring bike shoes
As detailed above we took and wore our touring bike shoes probably five to eight hours per day. They were comfortable enough for little walks if we needed to.
Trainers
You will want something a little more comfortable for off-the-bike use. We took a pair of light-weight trainers. We were so obsessed with weight that we just looked for the lightest ones possible and the Solomon Speedcross were the best.
Salomon Speedcross Shoe
These shoes are amazingly light weight! Due to the light weight nature they're not super robust, but Stew wore these literally every single day of our bike trip and they lasted the year. Stew has bought at three three pairs of these, he loves them!
View ProductSandals
When we set off, we preferred trainers over sandals because they’re more comfortable and robust for walking. Zoe ended up sending her trainers home with Stew’s mum in Turkey as she bought a sandal replacement in Albania.
On the second half of the trip, we had a lot more stuff and were riding heavier, so Zoe took a pair of hiking sandals.
Teva Women's Outdoor Sandals
When I first bought these sandals I didn't think they'd last for 14 months of travelling but they did! I wore these sandals as my main shoe (aside from cycling cleats) for 14 months and I'm still wearing them today!
View ProductHow to choose the right cycle touring shoes for you
When deciding which type of shoe to take on your tour, it's important to think about the type of riding you'll be doing. Also, what your criteria is to be happy!
Here are some of the things we consider:
Weight
We like to travel light, so we prefer shoes that are lightweight. We literally short list options, then buy the lightest stuff; it's a bit pedantic, but hey, it has served us well so far!
Comfort
We want shoes that are comfortable to wear on and off the bike. This took a bit of trial and error. The best thing to do is try a few pairs on in a store and buy a pair in plenty of time to trial them before you go on tour. Zoe ended up buying a pair of shoes, not liking them and buying a new pair before we left for the trip. She then decided the shoes were too hot and had another pair flown out when we were in Turkey!
Closure system
We wore velcro shoes and lace-up shoes on tour. In the end, Stew was wearing velcro shoes and Zoe was wearing lace ups. Both are fine to be honest, but as I said earlier, I did worry my laces were going to snap.
Clips or flat shoes
This is personal preference. Stew much prefers to clip into his bike and he clips in for every ride he does over every type of terrain. I don't know how he does it.
I like to have the option to clip, but spend most of my time unclipped. I have pedals that can do both.
If you run hot, as I do, you're going to want shoes that are well ventillated. I had to swap my shoes in Turkey because my feet were getting way to hot (and smelly)!
If you're doing a very long tour, like we did, I suggest a pair of spring/summer trainers. You can wear overshoes when it gets colder and wetter.
Your questions on cycle touring shoes answered
The main benefit of wearing proper cycling shoes on a long-distance cycle trip is that they improve your pedalling efficiency.
Cycling shoes improve pedalling efficiency in two ways:
- Cycle shoes have a rigid sole which doesn’t flex when you pedal. This means that all your pedalling power goes into moving the bike forwards, rather than being wasted in flexing the sole of your shoe.
- Cycling shoes have a cleat on the bottom which clips into the pedal. This gives you a much more solid connection to the bike, so again, you can put all your pedalling power into moving the bike forwards. Also, when you’re clipped in you can leverage both legs to get the pedals moving: you can push down on one leg and pull with the other.
The main difference between bikepacking shoes, touring bike shoes and MTB shoes is the type of cleat system they have.
Bikepacking shoes have a two-bolt SPD system which is compatible with both SPD pedals and flat pedals. This makes them a good option if you want to be able to use your shoes for both types of riding.
Touring bike shoes have a three-bolt system which is only compatible with SPD pedals. These shoes are designed more for road cycling than off-road cycling.
MTB shoes have a four or five-bolt system which is only compatible with flat pedals. These shoes are designed for off-road cycling and have more aggressive tread patterns than touring shoes or bikepacking shoes.
Yes, you can walk in cycling shoes, but as long as you choose the right ones (eg. SPD Mountain Bike Cleats).
Cycling shoes are not really designed for walking so they might feel a bit uncomfortable and they are only really suitable for a short distance. For perspective I think I’d manage 1-2 miles in mine.
Post written by: Zoe Ashbridge