Second Generation Custom LorerTwo Shoes Break Ground at Eurobike

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At one point cycling shoes were all about power transfer. Comfort was barely a second place consideration, and for some discomfort was almost a badge of honor. At the time, it was a trend in most sports performance footwear and cycling was along for the ride. Then things started to shift.

The last few years have seen comfort first designs proliferate. There are multiple examples scattered throughout our component reviews but they tend to follow similar trends. The uppers are getting softer and the forefoot getting wider.

Lore is telling consumers those trends cause a new issue and the shoe the brand makes addresses it. The LoreTwo broke cover last month but now we’ve had a chance to see it in person.

Why is Lore a better cycling shoe?

According to Lore, the issue with traditional shoes is both power loss and discomfort. The company goes on to paint a picture of how both issues stem from a similar problem. According to Lore, the soft upper isn’t a solution but rather the source of problems.

According to Lore, “traditional shoes with soft uppers bleed energy on the dorsal (topside) of the foot.” This is because as your foot moves, there’s give. It takes a moment to reach the end of that give and those moments add up to lost power. Lore shoes use a hard upper that “apture dorsal rotational energy and produces increased ground reaction force to activate the foot/shoe/pedal system at the traditional “dead spots” of 6 and 12 o’clock.”Depending on how trusting you are, you are either thinking that you either don’t need that or it’s outright untrue.

Whatever you think about power transfer, there’s still comfort to consider. Even if you don’t care, or don’t believe, the power transfer claims the way Lore creates them is by using a hard upper or “dorsal.” to the Lore shoes. Most shoes can’t do that because the design has to fit a lot of people with different foot shapes.

Lore shoes are custom 3D printed based on an in-person 3D scan. Connect with a select group of professionals with the training and tolls and you can generate a full scan of your foot. From there Lore prints the shoes out of either carbon or nylon and the end result is something that fits only you, perfectly. The hard upper facilitates a, claimed, better power transfer but it’s comfortable because it matches the shape of your foot.

What happened to the LoreOne?

If you caught news about the LoreOne, you know that the company made bold claims about crazy power transfer numbers. The brand even asked that anyone who reviewed them followed very specific instructions to accurately show the power gains. The only problem was, no one reviewed them.

The LoreOne ended up being little more than a proof of concept. There are examples of them in the world, you can find an image on the brand’s Instagram page showing Steve Vela using them to win a Bronze in Team Pursuit at the World Masters and there are others as well. There aren’t any reviews though because the brand never got a good system in place for scaling up production.

On top of scaling issues, it turns out that even athletes care about the fashion of a shoe. To put it mildly, the LoreOne is not a handsome shoe. Because it’s so… polarizing, it ended up being a very tough sell to pretty much anyone.

What’s new about the LoreTwo?

The LoreTwo is an interesting evolution because it’s not objectively better. Lore considers the LoreOne design better at transmitting power but the hope is that the LoreTwo might actually see some use. Part of that is the system of scanning and delivering shoes that’s now more polished and accessible.

The other part of that is style. The LoreTwo is still a dramatic departure from a standard cycling shoe but now the brand hopes it’s more of a cool departure than a train wreck departure. There’s also more options now with both low and high ankle plus black or white in carbon or nylon.

LoreTwo price and availability

The LoreTwo actually broke cover officially in June. In theory it’s available now though it’s likely there’s a lead time. You can head over to Lore.cc if a custom printed shoe that makes you faster seems worth exploring.

There’s one detail worth mentioning though, the LoreTwo starts at $1349 for the nylon version and tops out at $1849 for the higher ankle carbon version. That’s cheaper than the LoreOne but now that you’ve seen it in person would you pay those prices for the new design?

If you are hoping to see a more detailed analysis and wear test, we’ve discussed putting them to the test sometime in late summer. You’ll have to wait until then to see if the claims hold up or if we get laughed out of the paceline.