Stefan Küng’s shoe modification might be the ugliest commitment to marginal gains I’ve ever seen

It’s understood by now that laces, from an aerodynamic perspective, are faster than BOA dials. They may not have the ease of adjustment on the fly, but one or two large circular protrusions on a part of your body that hits clean air is going to be detrimental compared to a system that sits flat along the centre line, especially when covered by an overshoe.

Tadej Pogačar exclusively uses lace-up DMT shoes, and while Remco Evenepoel has his own BOA-dialled Specialized shoes that retail at 700 dollars, he’s often seen in S-Works Torch lace-ups in both road racing and in the time trial.

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What does one do, though, if your sponsor doesn’t make a lace-up shoe? Stefan Küng came up against this very issue at the World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, and has appeared to take matters into his own hands by adding ten lace eyelets – normally seen on old-fashioned hiking boots – to each of his Shimano S-Phyre shoes, the BOA dials having been ripped off beforehand, with shoelaces threaded between them to create his own laced shoes.

Spotted by the ever eagle-eyed CyclingSpy on Instagram – in a post that has since been deleted following the original publication of this story – this mod was rapidly shrouded by a set of Assos shoe covers, but given the close-fitting form we can see the eyelets underneath. It’s certainly not as neat as a dedicated lace-up shoe, but it is likely worth doing from a pure performance perspective, even if it might raise the ire of his shoe sponsor.

Was it worth the effort? Well, if Küng was aiming for a top ten placing, then it is very possible. He snuck inside by three seconds over the Spaniard, Iván Romeo.