Certain shoe brands have pretty distinct reputations. Sidi shoes are generally classically narrow, Giro does excellent lace-ups, and Bont seems to be renowned for making incredibly stiff shoes. I’ve tried the gravel-oriented Vaypor G for my guide to the best gravel shoes, but for the latter half of the summer, I’ve had my feet ensconced in the new, road-going Vaypor.
Released in 2023 the new Vaypor has a focus on all-day comfort, balancing out previous iterations which seemed, from my perspective at least, to be chasing stiffness and stack height above all else.
Having spent a lot of time in these shoes, including some 200km all-day days to really test the comfort credentials, I’m pretty happy to conclude that they’re a great shoe from a performance point of view, and easily enough to mix it with the best cycling shoes on the market. They’re expensive, but they do well to justify their price tag, which is a hair shy of £370 in the UK and one dollar under $450 in the States.
Design and aesthetics
The one thing you’ll probably notice when looking at a set of Bont Vaypors is that they appear very flat. They’re an incredibly low-profile shoe in many respects; the uppers are very thin, and don’t extend nearly so far up the foot as many other road shoes do. The uppers also extend down to effectively ground level, so very little sole is actually on show, further enhancing the flat aesthetics. This, combined with a noticeably wider toe box than many brands (and a wide midfoot in my case as I’m running a wide version for my spade-like feet), means they cut a very different line to many other options.
This low profile isn’t just visual either. The Vaypors have an incredibly low stack height (basically the thickness of the sole) at just 3.6mm meaning if you’re coming to these shoes from another brand you will likely have to adjust your saddle height a little to compensate. The cleat holes in the sole do have a good degree of fore/aft adjustment, and I was able to get my cleats into a sufficiently rearward position without any issues at all.
The uppers are made of a thin, heavily perforated synthetic material, with only the tongue offering up any real padding of any kind. The closure system is a pretty simple pair of BOA Li2 dials; one for the upper, one for the lower. No additional midfoot strap, as is the case for the older Vaypor S and Vaypor G models.
The heel cup is padded with a relatively soft, lightweight foam. It’s a real departure from something like the S-Works Torch with its ridge of high-density padding, but again it appears to have been done with weight in mind. The shoes weigh in at 200g for a size 42, which is only a smidge more than the lace-up Giro Empire SLX, so the diet has clearly been working.
The carbon sole itself is perhaps where the biggest changes, and to my mind improvements, have been made. Older generation Bont shoes have a full ‘bathtub’ sole, meaning the carbon extends up around the sides, cupping the feet on all sides. It made for phenomenally stiff shoes, but I always found them extremely unforgiving. Bont does an excellent job of offering wider sizes, but if you are just a hair too wide then your foot would butt up against immovable carbon fibre rather than the more flexible upper material.
For the new Vaypor, the bathtub sides have been removed for the front section. The heel is still cupped by carbon, but now the forefoot is free to expand outwards a little more easily, especially useful for long days in the saddle when your feet can swell a little.
Visually these do bear more than a passing resemblance to the Nimbl Exceed Ultimate. The way the upper extends seemingly to the floor from the midfoot and the twin boa placement are all similar, and while the Nimbl has these beaten on the stack (just), the Vaypors are lighter and come in a far greater range of sizes, and width options, and are cheaper by around £100.
Performance
The Vaypors are a bit of a departure from most other road shoes I’ve tested out in recent years. Immediately you do have to commit to them by adjusting your saddle height downwards to compensate for the lower stack height of the shoes. Can you truly ‘feel’ the lower stack? I’m not entirely convinced I can, but that doesn’t negate the basic physics of having your foot closer to the axle resulting in a more stable transfer of power.
What you can feel immediately compared to my usual shoes is the lightweight feel of them, both in terms of the actual weight and the flexibility of the construction. The uppers do a wonderful job of encasing your foot without ever feeling unyielding, and while there is no midfoot strap the wide, padded tongue does an excellent job of dispersing the pressure applied to it by the BOA dial cords. The low weight does tick a lot of boxes for my inner weight weenie, but moving from relatively heavy, leather Lake shoes to these was about as drastic a change as one can make in this regard. Moving from a more lightweight competitor shoe to these the difference may be harder to feel, but standalone they do feel more like slippers than bike shoes.
This comfort is aided greatly by the changes made to the sole. I never got on with the bathtub but here my foot felt far more free. The wide midfoot is complemented by a wide toe box, something that I often find is lacking on other wide shoes. I could happily wiggle my toes while riding and only started to feel the outermost two getting pushed in on very long rides. Usually, they’re shoved inwards from the off in nearly every other shoe I’ve tried, and you’d be amazed at the difference being able to splay your toes can make for perceived power transfer.
The heel cup I found to be a little less tenacious than my gold standard, which is any top-end shoe from Specialized. To counteract this it is possible to heat mould the shoes at home in the oven, but this was something I never bothered to do, so it clearly wasn’t actually that much of an issue. I never really felt any heel lift, even with the power down out of the saddle, just a little more movement was possible in terms of rotation of the foot as a whole if I left the dials a little looser.
The Vaypors make a great deal of catering for all-day comfort, so I spent over ten hours in them riding through Wales to see if the marketing rings true. I am happy to say it does. While the weather wasn’t toasty (it rained solidly for the first two hours) the uppers were plenty breathable enough, and dried out a hell of a lot faster than a lot of shoes I’ve tried recently. As the day progressed and my feet swelled a little, a simple release of the dials by a notch or two was sufficient to maintain comfort. Happily, as well as drying out very quickly, they’re also a breeze to keep clean. The uppers are smooth, and effectively ‘wipe clean’. I wouldn’t expect them to do a great job of keeping my feet warm in cold weather, but summer showers and associated grot will prove to be no issue.
They didn’t feel overly stiff either - emphasis on the overly here - but they still maintain that rock-solid base. I’m still unconvinced that mega-stiff soles offer any real advantage, but in terms of a direct feel, they certainly tick the boxes.
Here's the real kicker, too. I have yet to come across a truly wide shoe that matches these in terms of all-out performance. Bike shoes generally are getting wider, but having gathered in all the best cycling shoes for wide feet, these sit atop the pile from a racy standpoint.
Value
As always in these sections I’m at pains to point out the difference between a good value product and a cheap product. These are an expensive pair of shoes, there’s no two ways about that, but they offer a near class-leading stack, very low weight, a customisable fit, a wide toe box, multiple width options, and are very comfortable as well as performing well when the heat is on.
They’re in the same price bracket as the Specialized S-Works Torch, and are certainly of a similar performance level. They feel a little more flimsy, but the flip side of that is a really featherweight feel on the feet - pick your poison.
Verdict
The Bont Vaypor road bike shoes are a very high performance cycling shoe that does well to justify its high price tag. They offer a much improved level of comfort, a low stack, and a fit that is rock solid without ever leaving your feet feeling trapped. The uppers especially are so lightweight and flexible that they feel slipper-like. They lack the truly locked-in feel of some high end Specialized shoes, but especially for those with wider feet or those who value a more roomy toe box, they’re an easy choice with no compromise in terms of performance.
