Spiuk Z16RC road shoes

Spiuk's latest Z16RC road shoes offer high-end performance from a stiff carbon fibre sole, with a heat-mouldable upper ensuring a comfortable fit. They come in a choice of colours you're unlikely to find offered by many other shoe companies, and are only mildly let down by the lack of micro-adjustment from the twin rotary dials.

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The high-end road shoe market is awash with choice, and Spiuk's latest have a lot going for them. Many top-end shoes have some form of heat-mouldable upper, so you can customise the fit of the shoe exactly to your feet. And the Spiuk Z16RCs are no different. Simply stick them in the oven at 60°C for 15 minutes, then pop them on your feet and wear them for about 15 minutes until they cool, and the upper will mould to your feet. Easy.

I'll admit to finding the fit of the shoes pretty good out of the box, but after a short bake, the fit around the front of the shoe (which was a smidgen tight to start with) was improved quite noticeably. It's good to see the cost of shoes with heat-mouldable uppers coming down as they really allow you to get the fit precisely as you want it with little compromise.

The sole is carbon fibre and there are a couple of reinforcing ribs to ensure there's absolutely no flex. The rubber bumpers at the heel are replaceable and there are ventilation ports at the front. You get the usual three cleat drillings, with a useful range of markings on the sole for cleat position, but I'd like to see a few more markings to make cleat setup even easier. The upper has very few seams, and there are two mesh panels at the front and loads of perforations along the side of the shoe for ventilation. The tongue is perforated too.

The combination of the stiff carbon sole and heat-mouldable upper produces a shoe that is comfortable with very good support. They are great for racing and hard riding, as they're stiff as you like, and do a top job of transferring all your energy through the pedals and cranks with no wastage.

The closure system is a pair of A-Top dials. They work a lot like the more common Boa dials – twist to tighten the shoe up – but they aren't nearly as good as the Boa dials on the Fizik shoes I recently tested, principally because you can't micro-adjust in both directions. If you tighten the shoes a bit too much and want to back off the tension, well, you can't, because turning the dial in the opposite direction slackens the Kevlar cable completely. So you have to start all over again. In reality, you get used to it and soon work around this limitation, but it's a little frustrating, especially for on-the-fly adjustments.

One nice detail is the inclusion of two insoles, one for hot weather and another for cooler temperatures. I whipped them out after the first couple of rides, though; it's just personal preference, but I found them a little thin and lacking in arch support, so put a Specialized BG insole in instead – something I often do with shoes.

These are really smart shoes, with a good fit that benefits from easy heat moulding, and plentiful stiffness for racing. The lack of micro-adjust in the dials is my only gripe, otherwise they're a worthy alternative to shoes from better known manufacturers at this price.

They're available in sizes 38 to 47.

Verdict

Stiff and comfortable shoes with heat-mouldable uppers, let down slightly by the tensioning dials