Fizik M3B Shoes

The Fizik website touts the M3B Uomo as being, ‘light, stiff and made for felling mountains’ but their intended use isn’t particularly clear. Open the box and the lid is adorned with random names and terms; freeride, Fort William, downhill, Houffalize, cross-country, hardtail—so the ambiguity only grows.

Any confusion dissolves once you have the product in your hands. The M3B Uomo is almost a mirror image of their R3B road shoe; the uppers and closure system are nearly identical. The underside has full-length tread but it hides a stiff unidirectional carbon sole that wouldn’t be out of place on a road shoe—they are very much an XC race shoe.

Looking almost like school shoes, the subdued all black uppers are formed from synthetic Microtex leather. This material was quite firm and to begin with, so they weren’t particularly forgiving of any irregularities in my foot. And like a pair of leather school shoes, it took a good month or two before the uppers conformed and moulded to match the shape of my foot (a few wet rides will help to speed this process).

Fit is always a personal matter but it’s safe to say that the M3B isn’t the best choice if you have wide feet. The toe box isn’t super roomy either; while they offer more ‘wiggle room’ than some European designed shoes, the toe box isn’t as spacious as your typical Shimano or Specialized offering. They were a good fit on my semi-narrow feet, offering just enough toe room to remain comfortable on longer rides. I was also impressed by the ventilation; all the little holes in the Microtex upper really work!

A Boa dial combines with a single velcro strap to pull the uppers closed. It’s really the dial system that does the work and the velcro is pretty much superfluous. Fizik uses a Boa IP1 dial, which allows you to tighten or loosen the shoe in very fine and incremental clicks; it was very easy to use whilst riding. To remove the shoes, you simply pull the dial and the closure releases fully—something that happened inadvertently on occasion due to the slightly exposed position of the dials.

Many Boa equipped shoes use two dials. The single dial setup on the M3B keeps things nice and simple but the closure force wasn’t always even. At times it applied more pressure up near the top and I either had to back off the Boa dial or reach down and pluck the laces to even the tension out.

Hard & Fast
Looking at the underside confirms the XC race focus of these kicks. While there is a reasonable amount of tread covering the full length of the sole, the blocks themselves are plastic-like and super hard. Walking on moist rocks turns into a crash-course ice skating lesson and the stiff soles led to some heel lift when walking up steep hills. There’s no rubber reinforcement on the toe box or around the sides, so they’re clearly not designed for extended hike-a-bike sessions.

The stiff uni-directional carbon sole does just what you’d expect; it delivers power to the pedals with road-shoe-like efficiency. The hard tread also provides a solid pedal connection and they’re definitely less susceptible to wear immediately adjacent to the cleat. Pay close attention to the SPD mounting point if you prefer a more rearward cleat position, as the slots don’t extend all that far towards the back of the shoe.

With a single Boa dial and full carbon sole you’d expect these race oriented shoes to be light. Our size 42.5 sample came in at 735g for the pair; that is respectable but still around 50-100g heavier than some of its lighter race oriented competitors. By comparison the lightest MTB shoes we’ve had on the scales were 560g but they lacked the robust feel of the M3B.

While the Fizik shoes aren’t the lightest, their sturdy uppers, hard compound blocks and full tread coverage ensures that they will last through a good couple of race seasons. After four months of hard use (with more walking than they were designed to handle), the only wear is superficial. No pretending this is a double-duty trail/race shoe however, and you’re better off looking at something with grippy tread and a bit of toe flex if your rides regularly involve a hike. For XC racer-types who rarely dismount, the M3B is certainly a shoe to consider. With an asking price of $369, they are in line with what you’d expect to pay for a top-tier Italian made carbon soled MTB shoe.

Monza Imports - www.fizik.it