LOUIS GARNEAU COURSE 2LS
Price £ 219.99 | $ 359.99 > www.louisgarneau.com
THIS IS LOUIS Garneau’s new top road shoe. It has a supple micro-fibre upper, a lightweight carbon sole and dual Boa closures. The sizing is slightly on the small side and we went up a half size from our usual. The inside of the heel is lined with a shark-skin style fabric that grips your sock and keeps the shoe from pulling away from your foot even when the Boa laces aren’t tight, so you don’t need to crank on the dials and cut off the blood flow to keep them in place. The rear of the upper is quite tall and angled down to clear the ankle bone. I didn’t have an issue though one colleague found the upper rubbed on the outside of his ankle.
The Course 2LS comes with two sets of insoles for warm and cold weather. The warm weather option combined with the very effective vents in the sole and mesh sections in the upper makes for a very airy shoe. However, the cold weather insole doesn’t block the vents sufficiently to stop your feet getting cold in winter even with overshoes. In fairness, that’s true of most top-end race shoes and at least the Course has the two insole options.
The matt carbon fibre sole isn’t the stiffest. It’s far from flip-flop-like and the slight flex helps make them very comfortable but if you prefer a rock solid connection we suggest you look elsewhere. The sole has a useful cleat positioning grid.
The comfort is combined with a low weight – just 596g for our 45.5s. Add in the precise fit delivered by the Boa laces and you have a great shoe for long rides. It’s just missing a fraction for racing.