- These are the new Mavic Comète cycling shoes.
And they have been surrounded by quite the hype
since they were launched just a few weeks ago.
Now fortunately for us, Mavic have actually invited us
out to their headquarters in Annecy, France
to see just what all the fuss is about.
And we will be going right there
just after we finish riding up
the most incredible mountain road, they call the Semnoz.
Which is actually on their very doorstep.
(lighthearted music)
This is their headquarters.
Now Mavic is very old and deeply historic cycling brand.
In fact, they've been around
for a hundred and twenty eight years
and they've actually did some of
the key technological developments in the sport.
And as you see behind me though,
there are a number of other brands under the same roof,
including sister companies Salomon and Arc'teryx.
Both of whom are massive in climbing
and skiing and general outdoors.
And that is quite important because
shared office space means shared ideas.
As we're gonna see.
(lighthearted music)
You can tell by all the yellow
and all of the wheels to be fair
that this is definitely Mavic's side of the building.
And here is our Comète Ultimate shoe.
Now, it is causing a lot of hype
for two reasons in particular.
Firstly, this is a very, very high level premium shoe.
But then secondly, and perhaps more importantly,
Mavic have actually got lab data to show
that this could improve your cycling performance.
And the way they've achieved that
is by taking a pretty new approach to cycling shoe design.
So you've got this really rigid carbon frame here.
And then you've got this soft, flexible inner bootie.
If you're a cross country skier,
then that may well be more familiar to you.
And you can tell from the table in front of me
that this has been quite a lengthy process.
It's not straight forward designing
and making a carbon fibre shoe,
not by any stretch of the imagination.
But the first one, the very first one, is this one here.
And although it's carbon fibre,
there's no epoxy resin impregnated into it,
so it's still really soft.
So you don't get any kind of structural benefit.
In fact, other than looking very cool,
it doesn't do very much at all.
So, hence why the rigid carbon frame was introduced.
And it was a lengthy process as I said,
but his isn't even all of the prototypes,
not by a long shot.
We've got another three boxes right down there.
But seeing as we're here at Mavic,
perhaps we should take advantage
and see just how this is made.
(lighthearted music)
Now actual production of the shoes is offsite.
But Mavic have the ability to make
any product they sell right here.
So that means bespoke products for teams,
for example, or prototypes.
Lots of prototypes.
Now, behind me that man, Eddie,
is in fact a prototypist by trade.
So that makes him a real craftsman.
He can turn his hand to just about anything.
But right now he's putting the finishing touches
to another pair of shoes.
This one here is where it starts life.
So this is fresh out of the mold.
And as you can see, it's not exactly wearable.
So Eddie has hand cut all of the framework out
and is now actually finishing the carving by hand.
And he tells us that originally
it didn't come out of a mould.
Actually the carbon itself had to be wrapped by hand
and he was the person to do it.
So he's been working on this project quite some time now.
(lighthearted music)
A long way away from the carbon workshop
and we've come to this place here.
Which is where all the prototyping is done for clothing.
And in this case, our inner booties for our shoes.
So we've got the biomechanics
looked after by our carbon frame
and now we'll add some comfort.
Behind me here we've got Isabelle and Andrea
who are actually putting together
a new pair of booties for pro rider Dan Martin.
And we can see all the component pieces
laid out on that table.
It's obviously a very labour intensive process.
There's actually 14 different bits
go into making up each bootie.
And frankly, I haven't got a clue what any of them does.
So I'm gonna try and ask, wish me luck.
(speaking French)
- This is a reinforcement.
It goes into the tongue.
- Uh-huh.
- And it protects the foot from being hurt by the cables.
- Oh, okay.
And so there's obviously an awful lot that goes into
each bootie, how long does it take them to get to
this point where you've got the finished article?
- About four hours.
- Four hours?
- Yeah.
- [Simon] And is there anything special
you're doing for Dan Martin for these ones?
- Yeah, we made some modifications for him
to improve the comfort and actually he was the one
who proposed to change the material,
the vamp material, to make it lighter and cooler.
(lighthearted music)
- Now that should have given you some idea
as to just how much labour has gone into these shoes.
But a high end shoe is all well and good,
it actually needs to work.
So we've brought you to the test lab
where all of those prototypes
have been put through their paces.
Things like fatigue testing and impact testing.
Then just over here, is the stiffness-ometer.
And this man here, Duncan, has been overseeing
the whole process of bringing the shoe to market.
So this is a shoe getting tested for stiffness, right?
- [Duncan] That right, yeah.
- [Simon] More is better?
- That depends.
A lot of the pros obviously want
the stiffest shoe possible on the market
so they can get the best sort of acceleration
and performance out of it.
Also the key factor really is
the stability of the foot on the pedal.
Okay, so with the carbon shell
we've been able to do this by having
the carbon come up on each side,
which obviously give a better foot hold.
And with tests with the pros,
we've been able to achieve a really high performing shoe.
- In terms of the physiological claims that you guys
have made about these shoes, how do you test for that?
That's obviously not here
in this kind of destruction testing environment.
- For the biomechanical aspect,
this is tested in the other test lab
where we've got a Wattbike,
and we've done a lot of testing with the pro riders
and with amateur riders as well to get the best
sort of, average in terms of
biomechanical gains of the shoe.
- Okay.
Can we get to take a look at that?
- Sure, no problem.
- Alright then.
(upbeat music)
Now I'm not entirely sure what I've signed up to here,
but in the spirit of GCN I am just gonna roll with it.
This is Nico and you're the man who's been responsible
for collecting all the physiological data
about these shoes, is that right?
- Yeah, exactly, yes.
- Yeah, so what's going on,
I've got a load of electrodes stuck to my calf muscle.
And is this the claim that the shoes actually
reduce muscle activity in your calf muscles.
They effectively make you more efficient.
- Exactly, when you are pedalling your muscles are
using energy and with the electrode
we can measure the electric activity of the muscle.
And high electrode activity correspond
to high muscle consumption or high energy consumption.
So if you are doing the same test at 250 watts,
if you have less energy, less electric activity,
your movement is more efficient.
Because you use less energy
for exerting the same power output.
- And so how am I doing?
There's a really cool looking graph there
Can you see at a glance roughly how
efficient my calf muscle is,
or is it a very personal thing between rider to rider?
- No it's really personal.
With the data, we can't say directly
how there is less activity where we have to make
lot of data analysis to say,
okay, there was a difference, or there is no difference.
We have also to make many tests for one person
and many tests with many persons.
- Okay, and you're comparing it to the cosmic ultimate,
which is the current top end, right?
- [Nico] Exactly.
- Okay, that's cool.
One of the other things that you said is that
I would be getting about four and a half watts more power
output through the dead points on the pedal stroke.
So how have you gone about testing for that as well?
- So with the Wattbike we can record many data
and also the power, and we find that
especially on the dead points,
you have better crossing through the dead point.
- So you pedal basically through the dead point.
- Yeah.
With classic shoes you push you can pull
but there is less efficiency on the dead zone.
With the Comète, we have more efficiency
because we are able to apply
more efficient power on the pedal.
- And have you actually worked out why you're being able
to measure these performance gains from these shoes?
What actually is the part of the shoe
that's responsible for that?
- Okay, so it's not only due to only one parameter.
You know that with the Comète Ultimate
we have lower stack heights,
we have lower construction on the cutoff.
We have also a specific carbon shell
with very good stability, exactly.
So it's not due to only one parameter,
but it's a perfect combination of all these parameters.
- Now the last thing that I saw
when you released these shoes was that actually
in a test you did, 70% of people performed better
in a test of complete exhaustion when wearing these shoes.
And I'm slightly concerned, Nico,
that that's perhaps what you're about to make me do next.
Is that true?
- Yeah, maybe we can do a long test just to show you
what's happened and if you can go better
with the Comète shoe.
- Right, I thought so.
- Let's race.
(upbeat music)
That was good.
Not as good as French guy, but it's okay.
- Well that is an all too brief look at the Mavic facility.
But a great close up behind the scenes
on the development of these new Comète Ultimate shoes.
Mavic are rightly proud of the work
and craftsmanship that has gone into them.
And the interesting thing now is gonna be
to see just how this lab data translates
out onto the open road.
Before you leave this video
do make sure you subscribe to GCN.
It's very quick, it's very simple, just click on the globe.
And if you're after more videos now,
in fact, if you want some more info on these shoes,
we've got a full unboxing of them and that is just up there.
Or if you wanna have a snoop around
another big brand headquarters,
why not check out Canyon's down in Koblenz in Germany,
that's just down there.