Fi'zi:k and my money

Sometimes it's ok to just be really really good at one thing.

There is no other saddle quite like an Arione. From crits to centuries to cross, nothing comes close. It's so good, in fact, that I keep trusting Fi'zi:k with my money. Which is super frustrating because literally every other thing they make has turned out to be a disappointment.

I've gone through something like 4 Ariones on my race bike. It came with one, I loved it, and when it got as scalloped as a European horse saddle I bought another. And another And another. The one on the bike right now has close to 14,000 miles on it, and is in desperate need of replacement. More on that later.

On that success I've tried their bar tape. My commuter kept unwinding its 2.5mm LizardSkins tape, so I went with a cotton-backed roll of Fi'zi:k, and it was probably the worst tape I've ever used. The edges were razor sharp and the color was dull & duller. The feel was so bad it made me stop enjoying my commute to work, and with absolutely no damping it transferred all the road buzz straight into my hands. I left it on far too long before going back to the LizardSkins, unravelling-be-damned.

Since that was just one experience I tried replacing my road bike's saddle with their fancy new Vento Argo saddle last year. They look cool and seem to match the recent trends in saddle shape, plus I really don't move around a whole lot during a ride, so it made sense. And that saddle was absolutely amazing in terms of fit, feel, and even power-transfer...for about an hour. After that it felt like it was splitting me in two. Back to the worn-out Arione, and no more long-range discomfort.

I have a Mistica saddle on the TT bike, but as I have nothing to compare that to, I'll just say it's an "experience" to use, rather like sitting atop a perpendicular knife edge.

So you'd think that after consistent failures at 2 contact points I'd maybe not look to Fi'zi:k for shoes, but their new Vento Infinito's were so universally exalted that I figured I'd roll the dice.

Fi'zi:k Fi'zi:ked Fi'zi:kly, and now I have brand new shoes that I literally cannot wear.

To be clear, they felt amazing out of the box. I'd measured my feet 6 ways to Sunday to make sure I got the right size for me, and everything indicated these shoes would transform my life. I wore them on carpet for 30 minutes before committing to mounting the cleats, and took painstaking effort to match the cleat position to my old (5 years, 30K+ miles!) Garneau shoes.

The briefest of Zwift spins suggested it was pretty spot-on, so I confidently reached for them for a 40-mile road ride the next day. I knew I was in for yet another "experience" before I even made it out of the driveway.

Fi'zi:k is rather proud of the stiffness of this shoe. If that's the metric for success, then they should be proud, indeed. Every pebble, every undulation in the pavement, every everything is transferred directly into your foot. Raw and undiluted, like stepping on a LEGO brick. I found myself checking over and over again to see if I'd flatted the rear tire.

After 10 miles or so I kinda started to get used to that, though big bumps were still grabbing my attention, and I started to become aware of how well the shoes are ventilated. A plus after years of steamy stinky feet.

We were rolling hard for the first 30 miles, barely taking a moment to breathe, but when we did stop at mile 30, something happened with my left foot, and for the rest of the ride it felt like someone had jammed a stick into the top of the shoe.

It was excruciating and unrelenting. I tried loosening the upper BOA: no change. Now the bumps didn't just hurt the bottom of my foot, they were so painful that I found myself stepping out of the left pedal. I honestly though I'd broken a metatarsal, and I briefly considered calling for help.

I waited a day before trying them on again, but couldn't even cinch them up without experiencing that same pain. Turns out the upper BOA's base-plate presses very slightly into the shoe, so slightly you can only barely feel it with your fingers, but in exactly the most sensitive spot on the top of my foot, right where an artery passes.

And now, like I said, I can't even put them on.

Fi'zi:k makes a fantastic aftermarket saddle in the Arione, but their desire to be represented across the rest of the cycling world is maybe a bit of a stretch, because literally everything else I've bought from them--including used OE Arione's, which for some reason consistently measure 7mm narrower than even the regular model--has been a disaster.