Signs of use
The first ride. The first rain. The first scratch. The first crash. The first season. The last season.
Watch the pros for a while. New bikes, fresh bar tape, spotless jerseys. Everything looks like it was replaced yesterday. Except, quite often, their shoes. Look at Vingegaard. Or Contador, who has held on to his old Sidis long after newer models came along. There's something quite funny about riders surrounded by the latest equipment, still refusing to give up a pair of worn-out shoes.
But it makes perfect sense. Finding the right cycling shoes is difficult enough. Once you've broken them in, once the material has shaped itself around your feet, you know exactly what you're getting. No pressure points, no surprises after five hours. Why would you want to start again? Even if the white is no longer particularly white and the sponsor would probably prefer a fresh pair. New shoes can wait until winter. A few weeks on the indoor trainer or a training camp in Tenerife. Somewhere with enough time to find out whether they'll actually work.
I like how cycling shoes age. The scratches, the worn soles, the marks you can't quite remember. They spend thousands of kilometres attached to your feet, through good days, terrible weather and the occasional crash. At some point, you stop caring what they look like. They're just your shoes. And while almost everything else on the bicycle gets replaced, upgraded or adjusted, they tend to stay.
Put an old pair next to a new one and there's not much to explain. One looks better. The other has been somewhere.
That's about it.
