Specialized today announced its latest road shoes, the S-Works Ares 2. On the surface, these are simply a redesign of the first-generation Ares, with expected updates like easier-to-clean materials, better ventilation, and more conventional aesthetics. But what’s really significant about these is how they usher in an all-new last for Specialized shoes, with a toe box that’s shaped much more like human feet than what we’re used to seeing from most cycling shoe brands.
This shouldn’t be groundbreaking, but yet here we are. How did Specialized come to decide to make this move, what exactly are the changes, and how might they affect how the shoes perform? To answer all of these questions and more, I sat down with Specialized footwear category director Nick Gosseen, footwear product manager Dani Audino, and senior footwear developer Ashley Sult to get the backstory how these came to be, and where the rest of the company’s cycling shoe range might go from here.
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