Time Osmos 15 shoes

The iconic French brand that made Greg LeMond's shoes in the 1980s is back. The Time Osmos 15 has been meticulously designed with modern tech that makes it every bit as good as the flagship shoes from the latest big names that have taken advantage of its absence.

• Pros: Stiff, comfortable, lightweight, clever insole design, stylish looking
• Cons: Might be on the narrow side for wider feet

The Time Osmos 15 is the third and by far the best pair of Time shoes I've used. They are superior in every way to their predecessor, the heavily padded (heat mouldable) and un-svelte Ulteam RS, which stopped being produced in 2013.​

The French brand, whose founder Roland Cattin died in 2014, was bought by Rossignol in 2016. Rossignol used its own R&D facility at Montebelluna, Italy, regarded as the global capital of sports footwear, to design the new three-model range of Time shoes with the Osmos 15 as the flagship.

Without headline-grabbing features like laces, knitted uppers or crazy-light mesh, at a glance the Osmos 15s might seem a bit ordinary. However, I've been impressed with the way all the elements of its design combine to supply pro-level performance with hardly any comfort compromised.

Clearly with an extremely stiff, 100% carbon sole, a cycling shoe will never feel like a carpet slipper, but Time says it used a huge data pool of 3,000 3D scanned feet to engineer the last, and claims it has managed to identify the ideal shoe's form.

There will still be plenty of people outside the average of Time's data pool: I would say the Osmos 15s are more similar in fit to Sidi – comparatively narrow and long – than the generally wider Bont or Lake. However, I found the shape well judged. As for the sizing, the 44s came up spot on.

Construction

The seamless upper is made from a standard-looking and feeling PU with mesh panels. There's hot-welded 'spiderweb' reinforcement for extra stability that sits inside the upper right next to the foot, and I was slightly concerned at first that I might feel it, defeating the object of the upper's seamlessness. But once the Boa IP1s are dialled down, the foot does not move inside the shoe and there's zero chance of any rubbing. The IP1s are the top-line Boas that micro-adjust in both directions, so it's easy to tweak them on the fly.

That also goes for the heel hold: the cup extends relatively high up the ankle either side of an Achilles cutout and there's no heel lift whatsoever, even when pedalling out of the saddle and pulling up. A grippy silicone pattern on the inside of the heel cup helps.

Large mesh panels on the upper ensure there's plenty of ventilation (and help keep the weight competitively low but not the lowest, since Time says that would sacrifice comfort), and the carbon sole has more gauze-covered venting holes: great in the summer and for Zwifting but heading into the autumn, overshoes are required fairly early on.

Time has always made its own pedals – the first pair were launched in 1986, two years before the first Time shoe – but the Osmos 15s are compatible with all three-bolt-pattern Look-style cleats. Extra fore-aft cleat adjustability is possible with the bolt holes able to slide in slots in the sole.

The sole is further stiffened by 'foils' – twin ridges under the midfoot – that merge back into the flat sole either side of the replaceable rubber heel pad.

Time's insoles, developed especially for the Osmos 15, are worth a mention. There's a higher-density (ie harder) EVA insert directly over the cleat than is used for the rest of the insole to improve power transfer and also to limit vibrations, and this works effectively.

Overall, build quality seems very high indeed and I expect durability to be equally good, although – heartbreakingly – the white does not stay white for long. The Osmos 15 is also available in black.

Performance

The tongue is very thick to spread the pressure of the Boa wires, and this has the effect of making the foot feel very firmly gripped if you overdial the Boas. It takes a little bit of getting used to. On the first ride I ended up with a slight hotspot on the outside of my right foot once my feet warmed up that I tracked down to this.

The tongue itself, only sewn in at the bottom, is also slightly tricky to position correctly. But even these shoes, made from mostly non-stretch materials, take some wearing in, with the tongue remoulding slightly to the top of the foot, and it took a couple of rides, plus some cleat adjustment, before I started feeling truly comfortable and able to evaluate them for performance.

The almost perfect fit was a good start. An imperfect fit and a stiff carbon sole is a bad combination, but with the Osmos 15s I could feel the benefit of the very efficient power transfer without any discomfort elsewhere.

> Buyer's Guide: 18 of the best performance road cycling shoes

Unlike Specialized, Time does not use a stiffness scale so it's not possible to supply a 'meaningful' figure for the sole's flex and torsion resistance that can be used to compare them with other shoes. But from feel, I would say the Osmos 15 has the equivalent stiffness of its pro-level competitors, but the overall sensation is of comfort and efficiency working together with no harshness.

I enjoyed – and am still enjoying – the 'clean' feel of the shoe-pedal interface that these shoes supply and although, as with the stiffness, it's hard to put a number on their efficiency, for me they felt pretty much as good as it gets.

Value

The original RRP of £329 put them in the same premium price bracket as the Specialized S-Works 7 (£325) and Shimano S-Phyre RC9 at £319.99. There are even more expensive shoes such as the Specialized S-Works EXOS at £450 and the Mavic Comete Ultimate at £630. Cheaper top-line shoes include the Giro Prolight Techlace at £261.99 and the Giro Empire SLX.

But Merlin Cycles has them at £199, and at this price they are very good value indeed.

Verdict

Great-looking, super-performing pro-level shoes that put an iconic brand right back at the top of the cycling footwear game