B’Twin 700 carbon road shoe – special edition review

With the pros’ shoes usually costing upward of £250, if you want to ride in pro-level kit, they are an expensive purchase. But not all pros are riding in super-expensive shoes. Enter Jean-Christophe Peraud. Second in the 2014 Tour de France and winner of the 2015 Criterium International, during the 2015 season he was wearing one blue and one red shoe: the B’Twin 700 Special Edition, available for £80.

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Let’s not beat around the bush, the major talking point of the B’Twin 700 shoes is the colour. Like that kid in your junior football team who turned up in bright red boots, there feels like there’d be a certain level of expectation on your ability if you roll up to your Sunday club run in one red shoe and one blue shoe.

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But while we might not have the inherent talent to live up to that, if their quality is good enough for Ag2r’s Jean-Christophe Peraud, they’re good enough for us.

Super stiff carbon soles, better than some higher-end shoes I’ve worn, really dismiss any initial concerns about power transfer as you’ll be hard pushed to find something of comparable quality in the same price range.

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On top of that, the shoes feature two dials for a secure and measured fit, meaning that for £80 you’re really getting a great deal here.

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One of the small bugbears of the previous incarnations of these shoes was the narrow fit, but I certainly never found that an issue in these, with a sufficiently wide and comfortable last.

Fairly lightweight to boot, even if you’re not shopping on a particularly tight budget, it’s difficult to imagine why you wouldn’t have the B’Twin 700s at the top of the list.