Mavic Cycling Shoes

I usually stay loyal to a brand when something works or fits well. When you look at my bike fleet, you’ll easily spot a bunch of those brands. There’s Rotor for cranks, SRAM for shifting, Hope for braking, and Prologo for sitting. You’ll see René Herse, WTB, and Zipp on multiple bikes. I have the same brand loyalty for everything I wear on the bike. I move on to other brands from time to time, but it always happens gradually. I used to wear Giro helmets exclusively in the past. While I still have two old ones, I’ve moved to Lazer for road and gravel and Smith for snow and dirt. On the opposite end of my body, my feet slip into the shoes of two brands. There’s Mavic for warm and dry days and Northwave for cold or wet days.

I switched to Mavic shoes in 2011 with a pair of metallic silver Tempo shoes. A bunch of different road and MTB shoes by Mavic followed. The most expensive of them all, Mavic’s Crossmax SL Pro Ultimate, is a shoe pair I rode for a whopping 8 years. While it’s still a usable pair of shoes, I decided to replace them. Only when you place an old pair of shoes next to a new pair do you realize how much they’ve aged.

There’s a lot of complaining that cycling has become an expensive sport. I don’t agree with that. Cycling is only as expensive as you want it to be. The Cosmic and Crossmax are the cheapest cycling shoes from the seven pairs I’ve bought since 2011. Both of them are extremely similar, yet there are some subtle differences. The Crossmax Boa is marketed as an MTB shoe, whereas the Cosmic Boa’s target audience is gravel riders. They share the same upper shoe construction. The Crossmax Boa has a heavier, more aggressive rubber outsole. The Cosmic Boa has a lighter outsole, supposedly with exceptional abrasion resistance for those walks on asphalt when you stop for coffee. I’ll probably use the Crossmax Boa for gravel rides and wear the Cosmic Boa when I stay on the road.