Lake CX145 Winter Cycling Boots

Lakes CX 145 shoes do a good job of keeping out the water, but could use more insulation so they keep your toes warm too.

I hate getting cold feet. Almost nothing makes me want to turn round and head home more than that feeling of painful, chilled tingling, progressing to icy agony.

Wet feet are almost automatically cold feet, so Lake's CX 145 shoes look like a good first line of defence against frozen toes. They're made from waxed canvas and leather, with a waterproof membrane to keep out the wet.

They're closed by a pair of BOA dials, which nicely spread the pressure across the top of your foot, and can still be used with thick gloves.

The stiff plastic sole is threaded for a three-bolt, Look-pattern cleat and has a couple of lumps of rubber on the heel and toes that help a bit with walking grip. As with any cleated shoe, though, you don't really want to walk further than the distance from bike rack to cafe table in them.

There are slots for two-bolt, SPD-style cleats too, but you can't use them because there's no threaded insert and to fit one would involve cutting open the inner lining of the shoe, making it rather less than waterproof.

I find Lake's sizing generally on the small side and the CX145s are no exception. I can use a 43 in some manufacturer's shoes, but needed a 44 here, especially with the thicker socks I always reach for in winter.

The good news about the CX145s is that, yes, they do keep out the water. As long as you don't immerse them past the Plimsoll Line, and you're careful to arrange tights and socks so they don't conduct rain down into the shoes, they do a good job of excluding the wet stuff.

Problem is, what they don't do very well is keep your feet warm. I found my toes getting chilly after an hour or two, depending just how cold and wet it was.

I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, there appears to be no insulation between the outer shell of the CX145s and your socks, so your socks are doing most of the work of keeping your feet warm. Problem is, socks can only do so much, and in cold, wet weather, it's not enough.

The waxed canvas outer shell appears to be the other half of the problem. The first line of defence of synthetic waterproof fabrics is a durable water repellant coating that makes water bead up and flow off. But that doesn't happen with waxed canvas. Instead, the water wets the outer surface of the fabric. It can't get through, but it sits there.

As the air flows over the shoes, that water evaporates, magnifying the effect of the wind chill that's the reason your feet need more protection from winter. Result: cold toes.

The practical upshot here is that the CX145s will keep your feet dry, but work best when it's not too cold. But when it's cold as well as wet is exactly the time you want your feet to be kept dry AND warm.

Several shoe makers have insulated, waterproof shoes in their ranges, including Lake, though the thinsulate-lined MXZ303s are only available with a mountain bike sole. For horrid British cold and wet winters, Lake could do a lot worse than adapt that shoe for the road, or at the very least add some insulation and a DWR-coated synthetic shell to the next version of the CX145s.

Verdict

Effective at keeping out the rain, but not warm enough.