finally..

cadence clothing. they made some shoes, so i ordered some shoes. one day they showed up at my house in a nifty little sack. i was excited so i put them on. then i was not so excited.

they looked pretty good and had some nice reflective bits but for me these shoes don't work. they seemed to be a little larger than a size nine for some reason. i took the insoles out of a pair of nikes i had lying around and added them on top of the insoles that were already in the shoes. this worked a bit, but not really. it wasn't the length of the shoe that was off, it's the heel. it dawned on me that there is no padding or anything like that around the foot insertion opening and thus let my heels flip flop up and down in the shoes while walking or riding. this is about the point that i got a bright idea. since the cadence shoes looked good, but were underperforming and had a "cheapish" feel to them i decided to head for acadamy sports. this is where i found a pair of slip-ons that were pretty close to the ones cadence supplied. i opted for the khaki instead of the blue just for fun. i took them home, broke out the masking tape and began some painting. it turned out kind of crappy, but that was half the fun. the one major difference between the cadence shoes and the crap painted acadamy shoes is the padding around the shoes opening. it makes all of the difference in the world.

you can tell from the pictures that the khaki ones have seen a little more service than the cadence ones. also, the ones i "made" have no reflective material on them, which i think is a plus on the cadence side. i have not notified cadence about my gripes and i do not intend to for one reason: winter. when it gets cold and i start wearing socks again the cadence shoes will work just fine, i tried it already just to be sure.