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Specialized S-Works Recon shoe review

Premier mountain bike race shoes from Specialized

Our rating

4

425.00

340.00

500.00

Specialized S-Works Recon shoes.

David Caudery / Immediate Media

Warren Rossiter

Published: October 1, 2019 at 8:37 am

Our review

Excellent fitting, high-performance MTB shoe that's suitable for gravel duties too, with an eye-watering price tag

Pros:

Light, stiff, yet exceptionally comfortable with it

Cons:

The price is difficult to swallow

Specialized has been rather canny with the Recon, because it’s effectively taken the awesome S-Works 7 road shoe, with its seamless welded Dyneema upper and Fact carbon sole rated to a max 13.0, and then added a bonded dual-density grip section to it.

In addition, the sole can take studs for racier riders.

The fit is excellent. And although the toe box is generous, the twin alloy Boa dials mean that you can cinch up the fit perfectly, and there's extra adjustment thanks to the Velcro strap over the toes.

The Body Geometry insoles add shape to the footbed and they are compatible with Specialized custom options too.

Overall, the Recons are everything that you could want from a high-performance, off-road shoe – but sadly that comes at one hell of a price.

Product

Brand	specialized
Price	500.00 AUD,340.00 GBP,425.00 USD
Weight	664.6000, GRAM (UK10.5) -

Features

Closure	dial
Sole	Carbon
Features	Upper: Dyneema® Mesh Insole: Body Geometry

Warren Rossiter

Senior technical editor

Warren Rossiter is BikeRadar and Cycling Plus magazine’s senior technical editor for road and gravel. Having been testing bikes for more than 20 years, Warren has an encyclopedic knowledge of road cycling and has been the mastermind behind our Road Bike of the Year test for more than a decade. He’s also a regular presenter on the BikeRadar Podcast and on BikeRadar’s YouTube channel. In his time as a cycling journalist, Warren has written for Mountain Biking UK, What Mountain Bike, Urban Cyclist, Procycling, Cyclingnews, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike and T3. Over the years, Warren has written about thousands of bikes and tested more than 2,500 – from budget road bikes to five-figure superbikes. He has covered all the major innovations in cycling this century, and reported from launches, trade shows and industry events in Europe, Asia, Australia, North American and Africa. While Warren loves fast road bikes and the latest gravel bikes, he also believes electric bikes are the future of transport. You’ll regularly find him commuting on an ebike and he longs for the day when everyone else follows suit. You will find snaps of Warren’s daily rides on the Instagram account of our sister publication, Cycling Plus (@cyclingplus).