#Tighten pro pro
#Tighten pro plus
#Tighten pro free

While my feet will probably never be free of pain on a ride, the Linataman shoes provide as close to a pain-free ride as I’m likely to ever experience again. There are also shoe covers (that I did not try) that keep the dials and laces free of road grime.

#Tighten pro pro

The Adjust Pro lacks the adjustable heel cup, but is otherwise the same shoe.

#Tighten pro plus

The Lintaman Adjust Pro Plus are the highest-end shoes in the company’s lineup, but they offer several other adjustable shoes as well. With the Lintaman shoes I can dial in the heel cups so that they cradle, rather than slide against my foot. My heel will often slide out of the shoes if I pull too hard on a stroke. The heel cup is often an issue for me with shoes, thanks again to the need to wear shoes a size up to accommodate my width. It’s possible to independently adjust the width and the length of the foot, which means I no longer need a toe-box that’s too big just to accommodate my foot width. The adjustability on the shoes is phenomenal. Frankenstein designed a shoe (albeit it one with a certain sense of style and a high-viz color) but it functions as if Dr. Instead of streamlined and curved leather wrapping from forefoot to heel, on the the Lintaman there are several sections connected via dials and straps and flaps. For those used to the shiny, handcrafted leather shoes from Sidi or Giro, these shoes will look a bit odd. The Lintamon shoe has an incredible range of adjustability, with dials controlling the width, length and toe box of each foot. When a pair of Lintamon Adjust Pro Plus shoes came in to test I jumped (figuratively, jumping still hurts) at the chance to review them. I have wide feet so often have to go a size up in bike shoes to accommodate the width, but that creates a lot of flex in the toe box and I have to seriously tighten down the straps to keep from flopping around-bad for my joints. As my foot got better, riding still hurt, largely due to the stiff and unforgiving design of most bike shoes. Walking hurt and clipping into a bike pedal was excruciating (cleats are positioned just under my injured joints), and I went from a near-daily rider who tackled several centuries a year to someone that barely got on a bike. The surgery came more than a year-and-a-half after the injury, and while that was nearly five years ago, I still haven’t completely recovered. When I found a good foot surgeon (who instantly discovered the torn soft tissue with an MRI) I’d embark on two corrective surgeries, the first to shorten my toe, reattach the ligament, and screw it back together and a second surgery to remove the screws from the first operation. She mistreated my injury and left me with lingering pain, a feeling like a knife being pressed into the ball of my foot. Over the next few days I’d see a podiatrist that would diagnose me with a small fracture in my second metatarsal, but would miss the torn tendon and ligaments I also had. I staggered around a bit and then called my wife and asked her to come get me as there was no way I could walk home. When I tried to stand, I could put no weight on the ball of my right foot. I did neither, but I remained in the fetal position for what felt like quite a long time. The shock was sudden and painful and I lay crumpled on the floor for a few moments contemplating if I should pass out or vomit. My feet hit the tile flooring, my right foot coming down with the kinetic energy of a rapidly accelerating limb and a mind scrambling to regain balance. As it moved, I started to do a split between the moving couch and the stationary counter until I was far enough from the counter that I slid off of that. I’m not sure why the couch slid away from the wall-it’s a big, heavy piece of furniture and always a bear to move when we wanted to clean behind it–but it slid away from the wall. Wearing only socks (you don’t stand on a food counter in shoes, so I had put on fresh socks and was standing on parchment paper) I finished adjusting the decorative items on a shelf, and crouched to step down from the stomach-high counter to the couch a few feet lower.

For instance, standing on the counter of the coffee shop I owned late one night after closing I was adjusting some items on a display shelf, I didn’t know that my future of walking and riding was about to radically change. The most notable thing about accidents is that you rarely see them coming, and you rarely understand their consequences.