Northwave Extreme shoes review

We put Northwave's top-end road shoes through their paces

northwave extreme shoes
Cycling Weekly Verdict

The Northwave Extreme shoes tick almost all of the boxes that you'd expect from a pair of high-end shoes, with excellent power transfer through and all-carbon sole, great ventilation, and good comfort. Fitted with a better dial adjustment system and things could be perfect.

Reasons to buy
  • +

    Excellent ventilation

  • +

    Good power transfer

  • +

    Comfortable

  • +

    Speedplay-compatible soles

Reasons to avoid
  • -

    Unintuitive dial system

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

The current trend in cycling shoes is towards minimal, understated designs with very few shouty features. One glance at the Northwave Extreme shoes is enough to tell you that they buck this trend, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not excellent shoes.

As you would expect from any £260 shoes, the Northwave Extreme shoes feature a full-carbon sole that is incredibly stiff and very thin for excellent power transfer, with the slender construction meaning that it’s light too, with Northwave claiming that the sole on its own weighs just 60g.

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Henry Robertshaw began his time at Cycling Weekly working with the tech team, writing reviews, buying guides and appearing in videos advising on how to dress for the seasons. He later moved over to the news team, where his work focused on the professional peloton as well as legislation and provision for cycling. He's since moved his career in a new direction, with a role at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.