White shoes…on the face of it is there anything more ridiculous for cycling footwear! Exposed to the elements and about as close to road you can get! Well as I have three pairs; Road, MTB and Triathlon I am clearly a candidate for ridicule! That said when clean and bright they look awesome, with a snowy white or brightly patterned socks and a good tan they are hard to beat!
I had trouble finding road shoes, it took me so long that I even got bored looking for them! In the end I lucked into a pair of Bontager RXLs which were on sale at a local bike shop for 50% off and I took them. They are light, stiff and expensive shoes, even with the discount! They are 95% perfect, there is one annoying feature which is the upper strap is fully adjustable so you can position it squarely over your foot and sometimes it slips. It doesn’t happen all the time but it does happen…so about 95% perfect.
I have had them now for almost a couple of years and of course they are showing some wear. Fortunately where I ride I get 277 days of sunshine and only 25 rainy days a year they really don’t get put through the wringer! A quick wipe down with a Veloshine does the trick usually. Mine have been taking somewhat of a beating from the inside out, this is more of a result of hours spent on the trainer which does not have air circulation to dry your feet that you would have on the road and they were starting to take on the color of the socks, specifically a pink hue was permeating the mesh panels and stitching, they were taking on somewhat of a fuchsia glow.
I had tried a couple of things to clean it with but with no luck and it was when I was standing in line at the grocery store that I noticed the Clorox Bleach Pen by the Candy and Chapstick. I wondered if I could bleach them clean…for $3.00 it was worth a try!
Well 15 minutes work with a stiff brush and the Clorox answered the question, yes I could! It took a couple of attempts and will probably take another round but the mesh has cleaned up pretty well, the stitching still needs some work but it’s not really noticeable when riding.
I am a big believer in, as they say in the military; “husbandry”, that is looking after your stuff and this is a easy and quick fix that will help you pass muster!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for reading this post and leaving a comment, if you are entering a contest, please ensure you put some sort of unique name down so I can get back to you. E-mail addresses are ONLY displayed to me, and never shared, sold, pilfered, or anything else unhappy.