Smelly Cycling Shoes - Any Tips ?

VanhireBoys

Hi Guys
My Cycling shoes (SIDIs) really are rank..! Theve gotton soaken a few times of late and this has added to the problem.

I have to leave them in the bike shed at work and on the kitchen window sill at home. Mrs.Vanhire does not allow them anywhere near the house !

I have another pair I use for club spins and they smell fine !

I was going to put a pic of them up but I can nearly get the smell coming through the PC screen


Any advice on how to cure the nasty niff....?

Thanks in Advance lads

TinyExplosions

Washing Machine.

Or buy new ones.

Jules_G

Sprinkle Bicarbonate of Soda in them

Lumen

Oven at low temperature (~100C) for an hour. It'll make them smell vaguely of soup, which ought to be an improvement.

SpaceTime

Personally, I'd be a little careful about putting shoes into a washing machine.
I put my trainers into our washing machine and they knocked the paddles off the drum during the wash!
It can also be really rough on your shoes too by bashing them around the drum.

The best thing to do is this:

If you're sure your shoes don't contain any leather, then use biological detergent, if they do contain leather use non-bio. The enzymes will damage leather but they're great at shifting gunk.

Use a liquid detergent and soak them in a bucket of hand-hot water.

When that's finished rinse them out well.

Next - add a good dose of liquid, scented Dettol disinfectant to the water and allow them to soak.

Don't use traditional dettol - this is the purple or green liquid that looks and smells nice. The stuff that's used for antiseptic cleaning of wounds will stain fabric and absolutely stinks of hospitals.

Once that's soaked for a while, any bacteria should be killed.

Rinse off and hang in a warm place like the hotpress/airing cupboard once they're fairly dry.

If you have a dryer that has a drying rack insert, you can use that for shoes too and it's very effective.

Don't tumble dry them without one though as it will just bash your shoes to bits.

If it's a nice day, maybe just hang them out in the sun.

Pawlie

Its your feet,

SpaceTime

You can get shoe liners too and use some anti-fungal powder and make sure you wash your feet properly too.

If you've a fairly low pressure shower, you often don't really pay much attention to them and they don't necessarily get washed.

Teatree oil based shower gel can really sort the problem for a lot of people as it kills bacteria and fungus.

Darkglasses

Do what spacetime said. To help them dry, put pages of newspaper in each shoe. Change the sheet every half hour

SpaceTime

a hairdryer on medium heat works too. just don't overheat them though

doozerie

One of my pairs of cycling shoes used to reek (of un-neutered tomcat wee) after they'd been wet. The source of the smell isn't my feet, confirmed by the fact that my wife hasn't left me and my cats don't see my bare feet as a challenge to their territory, it's entirely something in the shoes that is triggered when they get wet.

I tried some commercial odour eating options to kill the smell, I wouldn't have been surprised if they ate the entire shoe, but they didn't work. At best they briefly masked the smell or made it worse by adding a side scent of their own manky odour (smelled like tomcat wee after he'd drunk an entire bottle of air freshener).

What did work, fittingly, was cat litter. Once the shoes are dry, get an old pair of tights, or some muslin, make little "socks" of them, pack each sock with fresh cat litter, tie a knot to keep the litter in, and drop one sock into each shoe. Place the shoes in a box, an airtight box might work best but I just used a cardboard shoe box, and leave overnight. Every time I've done this it has completely killed the smell and it doesn't recur unless the shoes get (very) wet again. I re-use the same "socks" of cat litter each time.

Probably anything that absorbs odours well will do, we just happened to have cat litter handy. It takes several handfuls of cat litter per "sock", it works best when each shoes is well packed.

My shoes have been fairly wet a few times in recent months but the smell has never come back as strongly as it was there last year. Maybe my home-made odour eaters are gradually and permanently eliminating the smell over time, maybe the source of the smell is gradually being washed out, maybe both, but either way this approach to killing the smell has been very successful when I've needed to resort to it.

smithslist

1)Get new insoles

2) Use an shoe\foot Odour spray. Great product I found it while I was running last year....you spray it in your shoe before you use them(can also spray in afterwards). Boots do a good version of them in there own brand so cheaper than others.

RexHamilton

If I got cat piss on my cycling shoes, I'd possibly give up cycling. I'd at the very least throw out the shoes.

VanhireBoys

Thanks for teh replies guys.. Very Helpful..!

Im going to go with Spacetime as a first step if that fails I need to get a cat...!

I'll let yous know how it all goes !

Pablo Rubio

Get this stuff (anti bacterial) ,a fiver in Boots.

http://www.boots.com/en/Boots-Pharmaceuticals-Advanced-Footcare-24-Hour-Foot-Odour-Protection-Spray-100ml-_1207468/

Remove the insoles and give shoes and insoles a good spray.

I also wash my shoe with Vanish oxy action when they get soaked, fill a bucket of warm water and a measure of oxy and it all fizzes up and lifts the crap out of your shoes.

AmberGold

I left my new Sworks 240yoyo odd shoes with a tiny amount of water sitting in them for a few days. The smell of mildew was awful and wasn't going away.

I sprayed them liberally with white vinegar and stuffed them with newspaper. I then left them in the hot press for a week. It worked.

Brian?

Change the insoles.

JMcL

A mate of mine swears by putting runners into the freezer overnight, apparently kills off all the smell inducing beasties. Never tried it myself, but it sounds plausible

kjoanna

Wrap them in plastic bag and put into the freezer for a while (about 24 hours). It should kill all the bacterias.

monkeyslayer

put my shoes in the dishwasher last week... 40 degrees... worked a treat... freezing didn work btw... but they were some seriously stinking shoes

gman2k

Spray with isopropyl alcohol. Game over for any bacteria that produce smells!
Likewise a tea tree oil solution.

OldBean

Throw a tea bag into each one if you're using them day to day. Should absorb the smell of regular use, but if it's built up pretty nasty, start with tea tree oil.

Konkers

There are a lot of cyclists knocking about with smelly gear. I went into the Spar in Milltown after a fella the other day and had to leave. There was a trail of around the shop. Do us all a favour and give ur gear a wash with this stuff every so often.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/mobile/ie/en/nikwax-basewash/rp-prod28506

wirelessdude01

Konkers wrote: »

There are a lot of cyclists knocking about with smelly gear. I went into the Spar in Milltown after a fella the other day and had to leave. There was a trail of around the shop. Do us all a favour and give ur gear a wash with this stuff every so often.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/mobile/ie/en/nikwax-basewash/rp-prod28506

Maybe he was just back from a long spin. Not much you can do about the smell at that stage.

MauriceRKK

Tea bags help absorb bad odours. Works for me. :-)