Teva The Links  (PRODUCT REF : 531)

A great riders shoe developed by legendary freerider Jeff Lenosky. It's hard to find a part of the Links that Jeff didn’t directly influence. He showed us his pedal; Teva designed a sole that integrates with it. He showed us the busted toe on his last shoe; Teva added a flexible armor across the forefoot. He showed us his wet, muddy shoes; Teva found ion-mask technology that actually prevents the materials on the Links from absorbing water on a molecular level (true story). Anyway, The Links is Teva's first foray into cycling shoes and they’ve been working with trials and freeride legend Jeff Lenosky (Links is the street he lives on) for the past year and a half to try and perfect it. It’s certainly a bit of a tech-fest. They’ve used their own proprietary variety of sticky rubber, Spider365, which they says gets even stickier when wet. It’s used on their watersports range but it should prove useful for mud covered flat pedals too.
The outer of the shoe is also extremely high tech, using water repelling ‘Ion Mask’ treatment on the leather and mesh upper. The coating waterproofs the fibres of the shoe at a molecular level, so although the shoe itself isn’t waterproof it is resistant to wetting out and soaking up water like some kind of trench-foot inducing sponge.

The rest of the shoe is finished to a high standard too, with durable laces and small cast eyelets on the upper two holes. The heel has a plastic stabilising band to keep you in place and there’s a shock absorbing pad for any hefty landings. On the toe there’s a rubberised grid to protect your toes and there’s plenty of padding all over.


Pic by Laurence Crossman Emms (www.laurence-ce.com)
The sole has also been thought through, with more aggressive tread on heel and toe to give extra traction when pushing up or down. The mid section is designed to hook up well with pedals and it’s just the right thickness too, giving plenty of feel but not to the point where individual pedal studs become uncomfortable. The sole hits a good balance between pedalling stiffness and allowing you to ‘squeeze’ around the pedal too. The Links do score massive points in terms of comfort and quality. The insole is possibly the comfiest I’ve ever tried, feeling more like a set of nice Paul Smiths than a school pump. They’re extremely well made and hook up well on the pedal and off, the uphill grip being excellent thanks to the more aggressive sole.
This shoe is available in lots of full and half sizes and comes in two colour choices.
Link to Singletrack article

Link to Singletrack article