Fizik Vento Ferox Carbon Shoes

The Fizik Vento Ferox shoes not only look great, they're very comfortable. Aimed at off-road riding, cyclocross and gravel, they combine the sturdiness and flexibility needed for tackling rough surfaces with stiffness for riding fast.

Their eye-catching lilac and luminous green colour is also consistent with the less traditional designs found across the off-road market. Somewhat surprisingly, I really liked it.

The design of the Vento Ferox shoes closely mirrors many of the touches seen in Fizik's popular road shoe range.

Firstly, the bi-directional Li2 Boa on the forefoot offers on-the-go adjustability. This is combined with Fizik's Powerstrap, which offers a really strong bind to the foot, removing any unwanted movement in the shoe.

I've used shoes vith Boa dials loads and these Li2s really are the gold standard, allowing tightening and loosening very easily while riding. I'd not tried the Powerstrap before, though, and was pleasantly surprised by how tight I was able to fasten the shoe, with no unwanted flapping of the strap as it's Velcro all the way along.

The upper part of the shoe is constructed with a woven laminated mesh fabric, clearly designed to be flexible and light but also able to withstand damage from kicked up stones or branches while riding off-road, with extra protection around the toe, side and heel sections. This works really well – when you have to jump off the bike it's not uncommon to knock your shoes against the tyres or scuff the toes on the ground, and here the extra lamination means you can just wipe away any dirt, and there's no visible scuffing.

I didn't have a great deal of time testing these in wet conditions, but the fabric is reasonably water resistant. I rode in the shoes a few times in light rain and my feet didn't get wet, but Fizik makes no claims about water resistance and I wouldn't expect my feet to stay dry if I rode for any length of time in wet conditions.

The X1 sole is designed with high-performance riding in mind and rated as 10/10 in Fizik's stiffness scale. It feels exactly that... super stiff! I really couldn't detect any give when putting my most powerful efforts in. As more of a roadie, I really value this, particularly when pushing to kick up a short, sharp hill on a cyclocross course.

The surface of the sole is designed with cyclocross or gravel in mind, with wide tread for grip on loose or muddy surfaces, and you could install a full-on pair of cyclocross studs for particularly slippy surfaces.

With all these features in mind, I'm really looking forward to putting these shoes into action in some proper cyclocross racing conditions. My one reservation is how they're going to deal with good old-fashioned deep mud. The lilac upper copes with light rain or dust really well, but I'm not sure how easy they'll be to clean after riding in deep mud, particularly the Velcro Powerstrap. My experience of Velcro is that it doesn't maintain its grip quite as well once muddy. The light beige of the sole is unlikely to remain the same colour either.

The shoes do also come in black, which might allay some of my concerns, but the fabric choices might mean they don't perform quite so well in these conditions. I'll let you know.

I primarily tested these shoes on my cyclocross bike, for off-road forest and park style riding. But I also was able to use them when commuting, fully on road. Many people elect to use shoes with mountain bike style cleats for commuting because of how easy clipping in and out is, and it's convenient to be able to walk in cycling shoes! This feature shouldn't be discounted, as the super stiff soles and lightweight design mean these shoes are candidates to be genuinely used on all types of bikes.

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I'm usually size 9 in UK men's shoes and found that these 43.5s fitted nicely. I would certainly recommend a close look at Fizik's size chart, as cycling shoe sizing can be somewhat haphazard.

> How to choose the best cycling shoes for you

Weight is becoming an important factor in off-road shoes, and 665g for the 43.5s is pretty good for a sturdy design, though you can get lighter – the [url= https://road.cc/content/review/specialized-s-works-vent-evo-gravel-shoes... Vent Evos[/url] (614g in a size 43) and [url= https://road.cc/content/review/bontrager-xxx-mountain-bike-shoes-272393]Bontrager XXX Mountain Bike Shoes[/url] (654g, size 43), for example.

Value

Although £299.99 is a lot of money, if we take a look at the competition we see similar or higher prices. Those S-Works Vent Evos are £385, the Bonty XXXs £344.99 and DMT's KM0s are £354.99, though Rapha's Explore Powerweaves are actually a little cheaper at 'just' £280.

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You can get very good shoes for less – we rated the DMT GK1 shoes 8/10, and they only cost £189 – but I think the extra value here is that you get a genuine multi-use cycling shoe.

Conclusion

Despite my preconceptions about a pair of purple off-road shoes, I really liked wearing these Fiziks. Their stiffness makes them feel really efficient, while the upper is light and flexible, and the dual fastening gives close but comfortable attachment to the feet. I'm slightly concerned about how these will fare once we hit winter and some proper muddy conditions, but I look forward to finding out!

Verdict

Good looking, comfortable and stiff shoes ready for gravel, mountain biking, cyclocross and more