Velcro cut out, laces put in on Taylor Phinney's Prolight Giros
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Taylor Phinney of EF Education First-Drapac has been wearing new shoes from Giro at Tour de Suisse(Image credit: Josh Evans/Immediate Media)
Could these be new Giro Empire Prolight shoes?(Image credit: Josh Evans/Immediate Media)
The welded upper on the existing Prolight Techlace is made from Teijin welded material, which is lightweight and doesn't stretch under power(Image credit: Josh Evans/Immediate Media)
The shoes look to feature the same lightweight, welded upper from the Giro Prolight Techlace(Image credit: Josh Evans/Immediate Media)
The shoes feature the same traditional lacing as Giro Empire shoes, with Phinney opting, as normal, to double wrap the laces round the shoe(Image credit: Josh Evans/Immediate Media)
Taylor Phinney (EF Education First-Drapac) is wearing his own style of Giro shoes at the Tour de Suisse. Phinney seems to have taken a pair of Prolight Techlace shoes, which feature laces and Velcro straps, and removed the Velcro sections.
The current Giro Prolight Techlace weigh a claimed 150g for a size 42.5, and Phinney's pair probably weighs less with the removal of the Velcro panels and straps.
While the new shoes worn by Phinney lack the on-the-fly adjustability of the Prolight Techlace, a handful of professional cyclists prefer to wear laces over the more popular Boa dials, which dominate the cycling shoe market. Phinney was an early adopter of Giro's Empire lace-up shoes.
Phinney usually wears Giro Empire SLX shoes, with the same method of double wrapping the laces around the sole of the shoe. Laced cycling shoes are also popular amongst track cyclists, and Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France wearing Bont Zero shoes, which also use a lace tensioning system underneath a Velcro aero cover.
While the majority of cycling shoe manufacturers focus on Boa dials and similar ratcheting tensioning methods, it seems Giro's laced range of shoes is still popular amongst a section of riders. The newly seen shoes join the extensive laced range from Giro, which includes the Republic R Knit, Republic LX, Empire E70, Empire ACC and the aforementioned Empire SLX and Techlace models.
