These shoes aren't made for walking

But that's not what they're meant to do. So you can rest assured that one of these days these shoes aren't gonna walk all over you.

These have been my main road bike shoes for a number of years now, and they've generally served me quite well. However, I had noticed that the inside of the heel on the left shoe felt a little odd, and at first I thought it felt like a fabric layer had come unglued and curled up or something, causing a bit of a lump there that seemed to partially go away when I tried to rub it with my fingernail to smooth it out again.

So, I finally decided to do a little shoe-surgery and glue down that pesky bit of fabric.

Or so I thought.

It turns out that the heel of these shoes is reinforced with a piece of plastic, which is apparently a little bit on the brittle side. Or, at least, is now a little bit on the brittle side, judging by the way it shattered into a bunch of crunchy pieces.

So, change of plans, then. First things first: gotta get rid of all that broken plastic.

The bottom bit where it was joined to the midsole was still pretty solid, so I left that part alone.

But now that the plastic was removed, I still needed something to keep the heel of the shoe from collapsing. And to make that something, I needed a template.

Turns out junk mail is actually useful sometimes. I managed to use this piece of glossy card stock to make a template, from which I could cut out a piece of 3~4 gram leather.

I probably should have got a fresh blade for the knife, but it worked out ok.

With a little extra trimming it fit pretty nicely.

Next up it needed to get glued in place, so out comes the Barge. For those who don't know, "barge" is so named because it's roughly how you pronounce "braincell death" after huffing its fumes for a bit too long.

I used a respirator.

It really is a trick to get the glue down in there without getting it literally everywhere, but somehow I managed to do it.

And the end result is seamless, you'd be hard pressed to tell I even had it pulled apart.

They're ready for the next ride.

And so am I.