Originally Posted by 79pmooney

(Warning, dinosaur here) I never "got" the BOA system. Always seemed to me a complicated, expensive system to crudely imitate what we did with laces 50 years ago - a system that worked very well (if you were taught while young how to tie a proper bow knot and double it). Had to laugh when the most expensive shoes showed up a couple of years ago with laces. (I'd been removing straps from $100 shoes, using a $10 Tandy Leather kit and installing grommets. $10 for the hardware at retail/pair. And enjoying foot comfort I hadn't seen for many years.

Still BOA free. And every pair of shoes I buy from now on will have laces or get laces. (If I did triathlon use straps. I wouldn't take a time penalty for laces but for road riding I don't have to.

And yeah. the laces thing isn't mechanically foolproof. They do break. More often than the BOAs. But the replacements are readily available, 3rd party parts work just fine and repairs can even be improvised. (And installation of the replacement parts takes what? 3 minutes if you are slow? And the failures have never cost anyone a ride (at least, not anyone who really wanted to ride and was the least bit inventive).

Ben