Gear review: thoughts on the Lake TX312 triathlon shoe

The post man brought a nice shiny pair of tri shoes this morning. Although I have some very light, stiff, and well functioning Biomac shoes I could not resist ordering these to check them out. The TX312 is the new top of the line Lake shoe and has a funky heel-closure system that allows you to slip into the shoe from the back and to tighten it with a Boa cable system.

To put the answer first: although these shoes are very pretty and beautifully built I will be sending them back for a couple of reasons.

First impressions: the shoes are pretty light for a production shoe, the right one weighing in at 328g in my gargantuan size 50 (or US15). In comparison my very bare bones Biomac weighs 246g, with a mountain bike cleat, though.

The construction of the shoe seems very nice, with lots of microfiber, an e-soles footbed, and a pretty stiff carbon fiber sole. It has two big velcro straps in the front and the Boa tightening system at the heel.

The heel flips down, which should give you the possibility to execute very fast transitions by slipping into the shoe from the rear and then tightening the Boa system. For this, I would want to set the two velcro straps at the front and only tighten the Boa at the back.

Similar to my older lake Shoes the front velcro doesn't do that much for me. I have a relatively low volume foot, so I really have to tighten it very hard to get any additional hold out of it. Other people with higher volume feet might find it more useful, though.

With this in mind I will explain the two gripes I have with the shoe, and why I won't be keeping it. First of all the lower part of the cable from the Boa tightening system runs across the padding at the back and does not have a specific protection for the shoe. I fear that with repeated use the cable will damage the padding, limiting the life of the shoe. Secondly the cable runs very close to the skin at my heel, which makes me nervous that it could rub during long rides, such as during an Ironman.

My suggestion to Lake would be to route the bottom part of the cable further down towards the sole and maybe in a "housed" canal, so that it cannot damage the padding and cannot rub on the skin. Again, this is a very brief impression and might not affect others, but I am not so keen on taking that risk.

My second gripe with the shoe is one that is very similar to the Biomac. When you look at the shoe from the back, the side "flaps" of the upper material that cover your foot come up pretty far. However, there isn't anything that prevents them from folding in when you shove your foot in from the back, especially after you have stood on the shoe when taking off out of transition. In the bottom picture you can see how this can pan out: the material on the side has folded in and would be very difficult to readjust whilst riding. This, to me, is a problem that many shoes have.

Again a suggestion to the designers at lake: by connecting the inside and outside "flaps" with a thin piece of elastic material, such as neoprene, it might be possible to get a sock-like entry that prevents the sides from folding in.

I hope these brief impressions are useful - feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions, suggestions, or criticisms.

Cheers
LaGrande