Review: CX Studs by Fairbairn Fabrications
Studs are an easily overlooked feature when buying shoes for CX - most MTB shoe manufacturers either fill the stud holes at the toe area with flat blanks or don’t thread stud holes in the first place. If there are studs in your shoes when you buy them, they are inevitably plastic and round off with the first turn of a stud key. The studs are then either stuck for life, or, more likely, they’ll fall out at an innoportune moment and you’ll lose them halfway up a muddy Rhodendendron tunnel in north Mull.
Words: Gordon Watt
Photos: Paul Fairbairn
Every Autumn CX riders dig out out their race shoes and set off for Sports Direct to purchase a set of rugby studs (football boots long since having abandoned metal screw-in studs for moulded cleats). If you’re “lucky”, you’ll have the option of a trip to a specialist rugby shop - school ghosts of Wintergreen and A&E hovering in the background - to purchase a bag of 20 lethal looking thumb sized aluminium studs the size of BMX stunt pegs.
Studs are an easily overlooked feature when buying shoes for CX - most MTB shoe manufacturers either fill the stud holes at the toe area with flat blanks or don’t thread stud holes in the first place. If there are studs in your shoes when you buy them, they are inevitably plastic and round off with the first turn of a stud key. The studs are then either stuck for life, or, more likely, they’ll fall out at an innoportune moment and you’ll lose them halfway up a muddy Rhodendendron tunnel in north Mull.
Words: Gordon Watt
Photos: Paul Fairbairn
Every Autumn CX riders dig out out their race shoes and set off for Sports Direct to purchase a set of rugby studs (football boots long since having abandoned metal screw-in studs for moulded cleats). If you’re “lucky”, you’ll have the option of a trip to a specialist rugby shop - school ghosts of Wintergreen and A&E hovering in the background - to purchase a bag of 20 lethal looking thumb sized aluminium studs the size of BMX stunt pegs.
