Good article on cycling insoles

[Alan]

There have been a few threads on this in the past so see the link below. The reviewer ended up liking the Specialized insoles the best but there is a lot of good info in this review as different people have different needs.

http://biketestreviews.com/the-best-cycling-specific-insole-part-i/


Alan

[benb]

I've had more orthotics than I can shake a stick at and have had at least 3 pairs of custom orthotics build specifically for cycling.

I've tried some of the ones he's testing and they are mostly a joke, he's not testing the really good stuff. Just cause the doctor/whatever he went to didn't know how to build cycling orthotics doesn't mean they aren't better.

The current ones I have are CycleSoles and they're worth every penny. As far as price they are pretty reasonable for custom orthotics. IIRC they were like $125-150? (The ones I wear for walking/running are close to $500 at this point, though they weren't that expensive when I bought them 8 years ago and they've been repaired/rebuild free of charge several times.)

Anything good is going to start out as a totally flat piece of material and get molded to fit your foot exactly.. it's going to have 0 give (for cycling) when it's done, and you go ride it and then it will get adjusted if you have anything to complain about. (Not much more than 0 give for running ones as well.)

Pretty much all the off the shelf stuff will collapse if you put your weight into it.. if it "works" for you when it's that soft then you probably don't need the product at all.

edit: The Cyclesoles I have are listed at <17g, the lightest in his test was 85g. Mine are very thin, and are completely solid in their interface with the shoe (the top gets molded to your foot, the bottom is molded to the shoe last). No way to compress them at all.

[benb]

FWIW I had horrific hot foot issues with my sesamoid bones getting inflamed on my previous pair when they wore out just like he mentions. (though I don't think those were ever designed that well for cycling.)

When I got my new ones I still had the problem on one foot.. the tech ended up reworking one little portion under that foot to fix the problem.. it'd be very very hard to fix that in an off the shelf product.