Adidas Velosamba COLD.RDY Cycling Shoes

The Adidas Velosamba COLD.RDY Cycling Shoes are an interesting pair of casual footwear for urban use – but, to quote a football cliché, it’s a bit of a game of two halves. They’re warm, they absolutely look the part with Adidas’s familiar three-stripe aesthetic and they’re great when you’re riding, but they’re a little too stiff for regular use off the bike.

Our best cycling shoes buyer’s guide rounds up our top footwear choices, though most are more explicitly road orientated than the Adidas Velosambas.

> Buy now: Adidas Velosamba COLD.RDY Cycling Shoes for £130 from Adidas

I am a bit of a religious wearer of Adidas Sambas – perhaps it’s a throwback to Britpop or maybe I’m just too set in my ways to choose a different type of trainer. I was aware of Adidas’s attempts at making a cycling version of its classic trainer – or ‘Velo Samba’ – in the past, and so with the release of the COLD.RDY version, I just had to try them out.

The first thing you notice is that they are clearly Adidas Sambas but with a slightly different shape. I’d say they actually look a little more like a skateboarding shoe, as they’re wider than the non-cycling Samba and the soles are much thicker.

The reflectives are a great touch. The shoes have Adidas’s classic black-with-white stripes look during the day, but when they’re picked out by headlights they come to life – not only are the stripes and logo reflective, the apparently black uppers are also impressively reflective. With your feet moving when you’re riding, these are extremely effective at increasing your night-time visibility.

The toe box is made from a much harder-wearing rubberised material rather than the suede used for constructing regular Sambas, which makes a lot of sense given the intended uses of the different shoes.

As you’d expect from a training shoe-inspired design, Adidas has gone for regular laces, but with a loop to tuck laces under, to prevent them getting caught in your chain.

What sets the Velosamba apart from the regular Samba is that these have additional insulation to protect your feet on colder rides – and it’s the thicker outer material used for the insulation that gives them the look of skate shoes.

In terms of effectiveness they are undoubtedly warmer, I wore them down to about 3°C with a regular pair of sports socks and my feet never felt cold. If I wanted to put on some wool socks or similar I could have comfortably gone lower too if necessary.

That said, these shoes are not waterproof, so while I could use them in light drizzle, for heavier or more sustained rain I would choose something else.

The shoes can take a two-bolt SPD cleat, which sits in a cutout, and once the cleats were fitted I had no problems engaging or disengaging from the pedals.

I used these with a set of Crankbrothers Eggbeaters and they worked very well, with walking not impacted by the cleats, which is an absolute necessity for shoes designed to be worn off the bike as well as on.

On the bike they work very well, and offered a surprising level of stiffness, so they felt less like a trainer that has been adapted to cycling and more like a cycling shoe.

However, although I was a big fan of these shoes when I was riding, they are clearly focused more on cycling than walking. This is because the needs of a more cycling-friendly design mean that the shoes are considerably stiffer than a training shoe, and there’s very little flex in the sole.

It’s not like you’re walking in a set of carbon soles, but a flat sole profile, combined with very little flex in the sole means they are uncomfortable to wear when you’re walking for any length of time. For things like a quick dash to the shop or for a desk job you commute to, these are absolutely fine, but I would not want to ride somewhere in these to walk around a park or go trawling round the shops for hours [clarified, for Rendel Harris].

Value

The £130 price seems about right compared to other shoes on the market and the cost of other variants of the Samba.

Our sister site off.road.cc recently reviewed the £140 Five Ten Trailcross Clip-In shoes. These have the opposite qualities of the Velosambas – as a more off-road-focused design these have a more flexible sole and are better off the bike, but I’d argue they still fall into the the ‘cycling trainer’ category.

John raved about the £190 Quoc Chelsea, a Chelsea-style boot with an SPD-compatible sole. And though these aren’t trainers, they offer the same kind of commuter aesthetic and seem a little easier to walk in – once you’ve broken them in.

Conclusion

I have mixed feelings about these shoes. They look great, work well off the bike and keep your feet nice and warm, and who doesn’t like cosy feet?

The flip side of the shoes’ stiff soles, which makes them so successful for cycling in, is that they struggle to work quite as effectively when you’re off the bike. They are designed to be used as crossover shoes and although they’re fine for riding to places where you’re not going to be doing a huge amount of walking, that does limit their usefulness a little.

Verdict

An efficient and stylish pair of shoes that are great for cycling – but these shoes aren’t made for walking

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