Lake MX177 MTB / Gravel shoe tested: Ideal fit for the wide and wild?

Lake have always been a go to for comfort and durability especially for wider footed riders. The MX177 takes those width wins even further but what else do you need to know to work out whether it’s the shoe your feet are looking for? Hopefully I’ve got the answers for you here!
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Hey up, I’m Guy Castan and these are the Lake MX177s. A really good allround trail shoe with XC styling that particularly suit people who want a lot of grip and support while they’re walking and have wide short feet, which for a lot of my riding is exactly the kind of shoe I’m looking for. And in terms of foot fit, I have got proper badger paws. I mean like my hands. I mean if you can see that’s not a pianist’s hand right there that you can see basically my feet follow the same super wide but really stumpy format. So in a lot of shoes there’s just a ton of free space in the toe. So, uh, I went down to Chev, who are my local bike shop and local lake suppliers, and they fitted me up with these, uh, they fit me up with a different pair of shoes, but using the Lake sizing system. And interestingly, while I normally get a 44 for test, these actually on their sizing chart came up as a 42 wide. Now, as it happens, my toe ends and toenails are so moldy from uh years like 30 years of well nearly 30 years doing this as a job, constantly having damp, soggy feet, and being an archaeologist before that. Yeah. Foot rot, trench foot, been there, had it all, and my toes have suffered as a result. So, I needed to go a bit bigger than uh leg actually suggested on their charts. And uh sorry Derek uh but it’s it’s played out going for a 43 wide not a 42 wide but uh they do offer a huge range of sizes as well. So 36 to 50 euro sizes in the normal fit and then 39 to 50 in the wide. And since I’ve had them they’ve considering you know this is like I say theoretically a smaller size than I normally run they have been absolutely spoton. So, and uh interestingly, these uh 177s are actually an even wider, roomier toe box than their standard comfort last. So, these 177s are definitely the ones to go for if you you need a lot of space around your piggies uh not to have some painful encounters with the trail or when you’re pedaling. And uh in terms of the rest of the stats, uh 418 g uh that’s with them dry. Don’t wear dry for a size of 43s with cleats in. Uh these are a bit soggy. Wore them on Monday. Um so it’s Thursday morning now. So they do take a little while to dry out because they’re very solidly made shoe. I mean I’ve I’ve worn lakes for decades on and off during testing. They’ve always been a really really super durable shoe. Uh use a lot of natural materials like the soles are actually natural rubber. And you can see rather than the normal sort of just separate pontoons of tread, you’ve got a full tread all the way across the bottom. And I’ve had these about 6 months now, I guess. And you can see there’s there’s been some wear because these are actually quite a soft rubber compound. Certainly softer than your average ace shoe, but because you’ve got a relatively soft compound and you’ve got a broad placement there uh across the fore foot and on the heel as well with a little bit of overhang at the back, just really really stable. I mean did a huge hiker bike on Nanield for the Polaris route uh that’ll be coming out shortly. And basically half of that was up a waterfall, but never worried about slipping and sliding around in these shoes. than in standard XC shoes that have been all over the place. And it’s actually this is what they call their super grip enduro tread with ice lock. Uh which which I think is uh I think they have some little granules in them. I think that’s the idea. Uh and also but also you’ve got to stud if you need to put spikes in for your cyclross shenanigans. And uh and also little interesting detail uh so the uh tread doesn’t get in the way of clipping into and out of your pedals, you’ve actually got exposed sections of uh the nylon sole there for the pedal to sit on. So they take the brunt of your pedaling force, so you’re not wearing away the rubber, uh which is quite quite neat thing I’ve not seen before. Relatively short cleat slots, I would say, on this. They’re not pushing all the way back like some sort of downhill and trail shoes do. So, uh, they’re a conventional shoe in terms of cleat position, but because the, uh, sizing is so good on them, I’ll put one down. Uh, because the sizing is so accurate on them, that doesn’t, you know, that I was able to find the natural cleat position right in the middle of the rows rather than having them right to the back, uh, which is normally where I have to set up the cleats because basically my shoe is my my toe, my foot is normally only filling that much of the shoe. But because I’m filling the full shoe here, uh, we have got a good cleat position on there. Uh, what else do I need to know? Uh, nylon shoe, sorry, nylon sole. There’s no carbon fiber in it, but certainly stiff enough. Uh, I mean, it’s not hyper stiff. It’s not the kind of thing that’s going to make your feet ache and knobble your knees on a long rocky descent, but a really, you know, certainly stiff enough for efficient pedaling, but forgiving enough for walking about in and just for battering around on the trail. Uh so again, that’s another comfort bonus. Uh you’ve got perforated uh Clarino microfiber upper with some mesh panels, so yeah, the water’s going to come through pretty easily. Uh but again, super durable. They’ve had a beating. There’s no signs of scuffing. There’s no signs of uh tearing or anything like that on the shoe. There’s a decent rand built into the sole around the front there. And these got little panels. It’s got there’s a fancy name. It’s like a little sort of carbon fibery patch. You can see under the laces there. What do they call it? I’ve got notes underneath. I’ve upgraded. I’m actually talking a bit more sense. Carbiteex. Uh which just spreads the load from this single boa dial. It’s a Boa L6, so it’s one of the micro adjustable. I kind of fall in and out of love with Boa, to be honest. It varies. Sometimes I think they’re great. Other times, they just just seem always a bit of a faf more to release than they could be. But anyway, they’re pretty much universal now on shoes, aren’t they? So, we got a single boa dial. Uh, the only thing I would say is that this tongue is completely kind of free range within the shoe and it you of I often have to kind of like move the toe around, sorry, move the tongue around to get it to sit properly on me foot. It has a tendency to kind of slide off to one side. And also, uh, over time uh, because you’re only tensioning it at one point, I tend to have to kind of go back in and like click another few clicks up. But it seems to get looser uh the longer the ride goes on. Maybe they just stretch slightly. I don’t know. Either way, just, you know, keep an eye on that. And if you want to click them up for a bit of a firmer feel, you can do that as you go along. But and then it’s a single release. So, it’s not a it’s not one of the ones where it kind of clicks both ways. You got clicky tighten, microtighten, and then the undo is just a complete pull release. So, uh, little little less accurate in terms of the tensioning, though. And then inside you’ve got really generous padding all the way around the heel. It’s actually quite a soft heel. You get there’s a little bit of stiffness around the cup, but it hasn’t got one of them plastic hard cups that you get on quite a lot of racing Italian shoes. So, again, just a little bit more forgiving, and that softer heel there means it it walks fine as well. And then you got a reflective detail on the back. Actually, comes in two colors, I think. Uh this is the black obviously and uh can’t remember the color it goes. I’ll put that in the uh caption below. So if you could do all the subscribe, comment, like uh things as if you haven’t already. Uh recommended the channel to your friends is a big help. Patreon’s awesome if you guys want to get behind the channel on a monthly basis or just YouTube gifts very gratefully received. And if you’ve got experience with Lake Shoes and you’ve got anything that you can add to the feedback on this review, then that would be fantastic because the more of you get in touch and enrich these reviews, the better they are for everyone. So for now, I’ve been Guy Castan on Guyz TV talking about the Lake MX177. durable, comfortable, really stable, good balance of stiffness and walkability in an XC style shoe that’s particularly great for wide-footed folks. Yeah, that’s about it