Remember when everybody said gravel bikes were just fully rigid mountain bikes from the 1990s? The Vento Proxy shoes in this unashamedly retro colour scheme could well be Fizik’s acknowledgement of that – a little joke at the expense of those early denouncers. Or taking the joke a little further, perhaps it’s a literal illustration of how 1990s mountain biking – i.e. gravel – has regained a purple-and-neon coloured foothold in a 21st-century world previously dominated by full-suspension enduro rigs and superlight road bikes.
So the SPD shoe is now firmly on the other foot and the joke is on the people who dismissed gravel as a fad or something dreamed up by the bike industry to make more money. It is one of the most innovative and fastest-growing categories in cycling with gravel-specific everything to cover every single unpaved aspect of it – including gravel-specific shoes. Gravel has never needed pro-racing validation but if it did, Fizik could point to the fact that Lachlan Morton won this year’s Unbound wearing a pair of these shoes, and at the moment there’s no bigger endorsement than that. Handily they’re also very similar to his EF Education team colours – you might say it’s a shoe in.
Anyhow, it’s accepted without prejudice that the requirements of a gravel racing shoe are very similar – if not identical – to those of a cyclo-cross shoe or an XC mountain bike racing shoe. So the Fizik Vento Proxy is designed to cover not just gravel but all of those disciplines too. They might look retro and Fizik even supplies a retro quote to explain what gravel, cross and XC shoes share – “the need for speed” – but underneath the coral purple surface and fluoro flashes is a lot of modern tech.
Construction
The upper is made with what Fizik calls an “innovative translucent PU laminated mesh that makes the shoe both lightweight and comfortable.” The mesh is tearproof, fairly rigid and completely unpadded, so the top of the foot is not cushioned as it is with, for example, a pair of S-Works Torch road shoes, my current favourites. There’s something of a stripped-back, spartan feel to them. However, the mesh obviously can’t get waterlogged, which is a big plus if you have to dab into deep mud – as I have done quite a few times in the Surrey Hills, where actual gravel is rare.
The tongue has perforations and a thin layer of padding underneath the closure, which Fizik describes as “minimal and supportive” with a single Boa Li2 dial and “textile” cable guides. Minimal is good, but I’d prefer to see cable guides made from something harder that put up a little less resistance. Turning the single Boa, the cable goes tight at the top of the foot but stays relatively loose at the bottom. Each of the textile cable guides contributes progressively to more friction, just like a knot. To get an even tension I’ve had to pull out some of the slack in the middle of the cable with my fingers, and although it works fine to do that, ideally it wouldn’t be necessary with a properly designed closure system.
However, the outsoles are very grippy – and it’s here that friction is much more welcome. There’s a big, knobbly, rubber tread that supplies excellent traction on mud and roots when a quick bike-carry up a steep and technical section is required. If you’re coming at gravel or cyclo-cross from a road background you’ll be grateful for this. The soles are made from what Fizik calls X2 fibre composite, which is not carbon-fibre and isn’t as stiff under pedalling, though it gets an 8 in Fizik’s own stiffness index. I didn’t miss that roadie total rigidity in an off-road environment where the pedalling is not so metronomic. And of course if you have to shoulder the bike and run, springiness underfoot rather than ultimate carbon stiffness is preferable.
The weight of the size 45 is 382g per shoe – a little bit more than the quoted weight of 326g which will be based on a smaller size.
Ride impressions
The size 45 was in line with other size 45 shoes I’ve worn and I found the fit suited my fairly narrow foot shape well – although I’m not a fan of the metatarsal bump in the insole. It feels like a lumpy sock to me, so I've used my own Retül insoles – it's a personal thing. Although I’ve had a moan about the closure system, in fact the shape of the last was so good that I didn’t need to crank the Vento Proxys up tight. I’ve worn them for some long gravel rides at home and abroad and have been perfectly comfortable despite the initial worry that my feet might not be swaddled enough.
I’ve had the SPD cleats positioned in the middle of the fore-aft adjustability and I’ve found pedalling geometry to be perfect. Clipping in and out under pressure is easy – the tread is designed so that the cleat finds the pedal easily and engages almost mid pedal stroke.
I’ve liked these shoes so much that I swapped to SPD pedals for my pub/hack steel fixed-wheel Mercian just so that I could wear them more often. Everywhere I’ve gone people have loved them. I was delighted to discover the other day that my old friend Stu Bowers, formerly of Cyclist, now with SRAM, has a pair too. On our ride, his Vento Proxys touched the ground a lot less than mine did, needless to say. But best of all, standing at the bar at the Surrey Oaks in front of two builders wearing cement-spattered steel-toecap boots, one said to the other: “Mate, you need a pair of them.” Of course they were taking the piss, but I’ll admit that when I first saw them at the Core Bike Show when they launched earlier this year, that was my exact reaction too.
Verdict
I have a minor gripe about the closure, but next to the performance and aesthetics of these shoes, it is exactly that – minor – because everything else about the Vento Proxys is major. They are loud and proud and they are trousers as well as mouth (I wonder what those builders in the pub would say about trousers in this colour scheme). They are as big a statement about gravel in 2024 as it’s possible to make. It is non-conformist, anarchic, having a laugh, paying ironic tributes to bygone eras but at the same time it’s a performance-based sport and the Vento Proxys have the requisite tech. At £229.99 they're priced below the £299.99 Vento Ferox Carbon and over £100 below the brand's high-end road race shoes such as the Vento Infinito Carbon 2 Wide as worn by Movistar.
If for some mad reason you actually don't want the Vento Proxys in this colourway, Fizik also makes them in black, white and Sky Blue Reflective and they come in sizes 36-48 (37 to 47 also in half sizes). Go to Fizik's website for more information.
