Northwave Corsair 2 Shoes

What a great time to be feet these days! There is an impossible number of manufacturers and countless models from each to choose from for the kind of shape, size and volume your feet my have. The high-end cycling shoe company Northwave has been pushing a few surprisingly good products onto our test team this year. I too got caught in the crossfire and ended up with a pair of Corsair 2s to pedal around in for the last couple of months.

First of all, apologies for not getting a shot of these puppies before I really put them through the ringer. Luckily for you, the internet is full of them. So Instead we'll reveal how they survived a thousand kilometres of pedalling, hiking, walking, standing and après-ing in the lower left corner of Canada.

Northwave Corsair 2

These are the kind of shoes that look better in person. While you'd never see a shoe in real life straight from the side, the overall proportions of the Corsair 2 are quite pleasing to the eye. The blue version I received has subtle graphics and works well with a variety of colourful shirts and socks. Being that guy with the 'fun socks,' I found I can rock just about anything with these shoes and the low ankles let my foot covers shine. The uppers are a light and tough Ripstop mesh material that is reinforced with TPU inserts on the toebox for impact protection. Sizing spans from 36 to 50 for a wide range of fits. The volume is universal with no separate wide option.

The Corsair 2 is a shoe primarily aimed at the alpine crowd who will have to get off their bike and push up to get to the best views possible. It's a softer shoe that pedals really well all day but excels in off bike experience. Part of that experience is the way the shoe flexes but also how it secures iteself to your feet.

SLW3

Northwave decided to develop their own dial system called the SLW3, instead of licencing an already existing product from BOA. This is good news on a couple of fronts and possibly a bad one from others. The SLW3 system offers the functionality and robustness of the BOAs Li2 system with the addition of a trick, dual-function quick-release lever. The SLW3 is a high resolution system, meaning the cable pull per click is really low. While this makes tightening up your shoes a loud event, you can dial in the fit precisely. The lever on the dial can be pushed in for a single click release per push. This will allow you to loosen the fit slightly for climbs and tighten back up for descents. If you pull the lever up with the tip of your finger, this will release all tension until you let go. The system works as advertised on the left shoe but definitely is sticky on the right one. This was the case from out of the box unfortunately. The right shoe needs a solid tug on the tongue while lifting the release lever to free the spool. Which brings me to my next complaint.

The Tongue

I love whoever came up with the name for this piece of a shoe. Tongue is an appropriate word to call what can be an annoying and troublesome element of a shoe. Some companies get it right, and some miss the mark entirely. Northwave's Corsair 2 is somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. The tongue is attached only on the very front of the uppers and tends to move around as your foot settles in. It gets slightly uncomfortable as this shift happens. The edge of the Ripstop material is not finished in an elegant way and It affects the fit unless it's folded right. There is also very little absorbent material on the inside of the shoe and what is there doesn't seem to be very absorbent. All this makes for an airy summer shoe which could also shed water fast in the wet season.

Overall I find the Northwave Corsair 2 to be a comfortable all day riding shoe if you are not trying to squeeze every watt out of your pedal stroke. It has give, but the give makes it easy to live with. Recently I wore them while chasing and photographing the BC Bike Race for 8 days in a row. I was in the Corsair 2s all day long, riding, running, hiking and kicking rocks. I still had baby toes after all this abuse to my feet. There were a couple of 35°C days where my feet felt warm but it could have been much worse with some of the other shoes in my closet.

My go-to trail shoes are the Crankbrothers Mallet Trails these days and I don't think the Corsair 2s will directly replace those. If there is a long alpine day on the menu or if I am flying somewhere to ride bikes for a week, I may bring these along. They work well with Time cleats and do not require spacers. They have 35mm of cleat adjustment for any type of pedalling dynamics. The price is good too at 140 USD / 168 CAD / 115 EUR.

Northwave Corsair 2