- This week's GCN unboxing has, I'll admit,
got me even more quivery with excitement than usual.
As you know, I am a big fan of new tech.
And what is inside this box has been causing
something of a stir in recent weeks.
This is going to be one seriously exclusive GCN unboxing.
And yes, we are still giving away
the contents of this box at the end of this video.
Because what's in here is the new Mavic Comète shoes.
Ooohh.
Now, let's get this out of the way early, shall we?
These cost $1000 per pair.
That is an expensive pair of shoes
whichever way you look at it.
I did in fact have a Google,
and it turns out that you can buy a pair of Manolo Blahniks
for the same price.
Now unfortunately they don't make my size,
and they're not really my cup of tea anyway.
And I doubt very much that anywhere near as much design,
engineering, and R&D goes into those than these here Mavics.
Now, aside from the price, this is no ordinary shoe.
If it's possible to change shoe design,
then Mavic has pretty much done it.
They say that this project actually started right back
in 2011 following a request from pro athletes for a shoe
with even better power transfer,
but without any added weight.
So, Mavic turned to outside
of the cycling industry for inspiration.
And then, just 200 prototypes later, they have this.
And they are more than happy that it ticks
both of their original boxes, plus a few more.
And they say they've got the research to back it up.
They way they've done it
is to separate the shoes into two parts.
And no, I don't just mean left and right.
I mean they've literally separated each shoe into two parts.
(clicking)
Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.
There we go.
A carbon fibre outer, kind of like an exoskeleton,
handles all the power transfer and the stability.
As you can see, the carbon shell wraps all the way over
the side of your foot there.
But, they kept that super light weight.
Now, Mavic say they've spent a long time
dialing in the perfect fit of the carbon,
and also the thickness of it.
And having spent an awfully long time building carbon wheels
they've got a lot of experience at working,
and also testing it.
One of the areas where that's really apparent
is the stack height.
So that is the distance between
the ball of your foot and the pedal.
It's just four and a half millimetres.
Now that's tiny.
It's also, Mavic say, important,
and we'll come onto that in a little bit.
Part two of the shoe is this, the inner bootie.
Now this is designed for hot weather
racing or riding in mind,
so it's got a stack of ventilation you can see there.
Now, it's made out of a synthetic material,
and you'll have noticed, I'm sure,
that it was actually pretty difficult to remove it
from the carbon shell.
Part of that is due to this
really high friction outer layer.
So the carbon and this integrate into one entity by the end.
It's also got a removable inner sole.
And, should you wish,
you can replace it
with a different one from inside your box there.
Now this is slightly thicker,
so if you were to have a particularly low volume foot,
then you'd still be able to get comfortable
with the same carbon exoskeleton.
So what about that research then?
Well, Mavic say there were two parts to the potential
performance benefits of using these shoes.
Firstly, they were able to measure a significant reduction
in calf muscle activity when pedaling.
From that, they were able to establish
there is a potential lower cost of pedaling,
so greater muscular efficiency.
And they've attributed that to two things.
Firstly, their super low stack height,
that I've just been talking about, and I did say
it was very important.
But then also, they've measured an increased ankle movement,
19% in fact, thanks to their 3D image capture software.
And they have attributed that due to the fact
that you have this really soft upper bootie there,
and then the carbon fibre is cut really low,
so you can literally move your ankle further,
and with less resistance.
In addition, they also worked out
that the increased freedom of ankle movement
could allow for a fuller pedal stroke.
And they actually tested for it and found that subjects
could put out over four watts more power,
at the dead points of the pedal stroke,
so top dead centre and bottom dead centre,
compared to their previous shoes.
And that was when riding at a steady state of 250 watts
on a watt bike.
Because of this, and all the positive feedback
that Mavic received from testers,
particularly influential was Dan Martin
of Quick-Step Floors, who has supposedly said
that he feels a greater connecion to his bike
wearing these shoes than with anything previously.
Mavic were moved to actually test for overall performance.
So once again, test subjects were asked to ride a watt bike.
This time to exhaustion.
And they found, apparently, that 70% of those subjects
performed better for wearing these new shoes,
compared to their old top of the range models,
and that was the only thing they changed.
It sounds quite incredible,
and I could imagine that the sceptics among you out there
are probably poised with fingers above keyboards
ready to type a comment.
But before you do, I would just say one thing.
Mavic are a company of longstanding
and they have a reputation of for doing things in very
deliberate and considered way.
They don't tend to jump on bandwagons,
they don't tend to make exaggerated claims.
So, we are hoping to get a little bit more insight
into this testing protocol very soon.
But in the meantime,
I thought I'd show you something kind of cool.
Custom overshoes!
Look at that.
That's a nice touch.
Also in here, a cleaning cloth.
In a dedicated cleaning cloth pocket.
Oh yeah.
Well, as I said, we are actually
still going to give these shoes away
to one lucky GCN viewer.
If you want that to be you,
you need to enter the competition.
To find out how to enter the competition,
well you just need to listen now,
because I'm going to tell you.
In the description below this video, there is a link.
Click on that, and it will take you straight through
to the competition.
There, you will answer a simple question,
and then keep your fingers crossed.
Then in the mean time, why not subscribe to GCN?
First of all, that's very simple.
Just click on the globe.
And then, if you want more content, well,
why not click just over there to find out how and when
to replace your cleats on your cycling shoes.
And then for another cheeky little Mavic innovation,
why not go back to Eurobike 2016 to see their
new quick release through axle?
And that's just up there.