CHPT3 wants to encourage people to use their bikes by providing them with a choice of clothing to suit their lifestyles. The brand was started in 2015 by champion cyclist David Millar, a man who has won four stages of the Tour de France and was British national time trial champion and British national road champion. But despite his sporting pedigree, Millar is no cycling elitist, and is as passionate about riding his fold-up Brompton as any lightweight road racing bike. So, while CHPT3 does produce high-tech performance wear, the real innovation lies in applying the learnings from this to designs like Henleys and “Allroad” shorts that work both on- and off-bike.

Perhaps the item that is hardest to assimilate into a daily wardrobe is the cycling shoe. And this is where Millar’s co-founder, James Carnes, comes in. For 26 years, Carnes worked for Adidas, where he was, among other things, a footwear designer and creative director of all sports products. At CHPT3, he is now launching a hybrid cycling trainer that can clip into cycle cleats, but also be worn all day, comfortably, around town.

‘There have been hybrid shoes before,’ says Millar. ‘But they were designed with the bike in mind, and missed the fact that when you’re out and about, you’ll spend more time off the bike than on it. They had it the wrong way round. These shoes were not something you’d enjoy wearing unless you were cycling.’ In short, they were pretty good for clip-in riding, but not great for walking. Carnes describes how these shoes induce what he calls ‘the penguin walk’. To solve the problem, Millar sent him a bunch of his own cycling shoes – professional ones, amateur ones, with cleats, and hybrids. Carnes pulled them apart in his kitchen and back garden by soaking them in boiling water (who knew?) and studied how they were made. What he found with the hybrids surprised him.

‘I was shocked,’ says Carnes. ‘I was expecting two or three different constructions, something I hadn’t seen before. But what you have is a full-length nylon cycling plate with clip-in capacity, and they’d put in a rubber sole around it. The shoe was very stiff; a normal cycling shoe with other materials around it. It doesn’t work. It’s basic biomechanics; when you put your foot down there’s no flexibility. Nylon is a material that’s good for a cycling shoe but not good for walking.’

Working with a German innovation laboratory, Carnes came up with a new design, using his experience of the material and tech used in football boots: a smaller footplate, thinner so it flexes ‘so there’s higher energy return, higher rebound; you get the stiffness you need but the comfort, too’.

It has the height and cushion element of an athletic shoe – ‘When you step on the heel it’s soft as you roll through it. It’s a little stiffer than a running shoe, but you can fully walk around all day,’ – and your cleats will not touch the ground. Carnes sees the Traffic shoe, as it is called, as the footwear equivalent of an SUV: ‘You can click into four-wheel drive if you want to, but you may not use it for its intended purpose; if you buy the shoe and never use it with the SPD [clip-in tech], it’s still fantastic.’

In testing, Carnes and Millar were so pleased with the result – and how it looked – that they went even further, developing a version for regular flat pedals, too, without cleats but with a sole that gives good grip on a pedal.

The Traffic shoe is also designed with sustainability in mind, and Carnes says as much of it as can be is made using natural or bio-based materials: ‘For the sole, we got special access to a really revolutionary polyurethane material that is 50 per cent bio-based, and in future we hope to get that to 80 per cent.’ This came from Germany, which is where the Traffic shoe is made. The upper is leather and he is also developing a vegan upper made from Tencel (wood pulp).

‘And the shoe isn’t glued together. Glue is nasty – it just contaminates any biodegradable process. So, we’re using direct injection of the sole material to the upper. People don’t normally do this because it’s more technical. But it’s an automated process that also gives more precise alignment of the upper to the bottom. This is important for cycling – the alignment of the sole to the leg.’

The Traffic shoe may well be the footwear answer for modern urban cyclists.
chpt3.com