Quoc Escape Road
£150 Sharply designed British-born road shoes
British brand Quoc’s Escape Road shoe is part of their Taiwanese mountain flora, fauna and fungi-inspired Lalashan collection that also includes the Escape Off-Road shoe (reviewed in issue 411). The Escape Road is adventure-orientated and aimed at endurance riders.
A durable lightweight and highly malleable polyurethane upper sits on a carbon outsole that’s been designed with more give than the brand’s premium racegrade shoe (the Mono II, £270), balancing stiffness, comfort and flexibility to suit changing terrain and long days out. A replaceable heel bumper should help prolong the life of the shoe.
The easy-clean upper’s striking, fungiinspired amber colourway (it’s also available in white and black) has patterned laser-cut ventilation holes across the toe box, down the flanks and through the padded tongue. The upper is low volume with a minimal depth around the ankle of just 52mm (Fizik’s Tempo is 10mm deeper on my size 45s), which gives them an unobtrusive feel. It also helps to make them impressively light for a shoe in this price bracket: in a size 45, these weigh just 572.6g a pair.
The light weight and airy feel continues with the outsole. This fullcarbon design has a 25mm x 30mm squared pattern of 24 holes below your toes to help regulate temperature.
Sitting inside the shoe is Quoc’s vibration-absorbing insole with its pressure-point-release design under the ball of your foot: a V-shaped bump that helps the shoe feel balanced and stable when pedalling. Initially it felt a little odd, but I soon became used to it, and am now something of a fan.
The clever zig-zag of ribbon that guides the wire tensioner is low weight and low volume, and doesn’t create any uncomfortable junctions when you tighten up the shoe. The ribbons also have a reflective strip sewn in for a bit of low-light visibility. The cleat plate on the sole has printed guidelines to help cleat set-up.
I did find, however, that the forward cleat bolt thread was set deeper into the sole than the two at the rear, which made fitting deeper cleats tricky as the bolt threads needed to be deeper to catch the thread on the sole. Time and Look cleats were more of a problem, but Shimano worked fine with their longer standard bolts.
The shoe is superb on long rides. It’s comfortable and more compliant through the sole than most. The toe box width is good, similar to Fizik and Specialized, but it doesn’t have the same volume as it has a lower profile. This wasn’t an issue with lightweight summer socks, but when I tried a slightly thicker type such as Quoc’s own luxurious All Road socks, I found the upper rubbed against the first knuckle on my little toe, so I’d recommend trying these shoes before you buy. If the Escape Roads work for your foot shape, they’re a superb three-season option.
Warren Rossiter