If you’re someone who’s sensitive to discomfort in your feet or knees while riding, then along with dialling in your bike fit, it may be worth paying closer attention to your shoe setup.
Designed to improve pedalling comfort and stability, the Ergon IP3 Solestar Insoles are aftermarket footbeds that replace the standard footbeds in your cycling shoes.
The insoles are made in Germany, and they’re said to be suitable for everything from road and XC racing through to enduro and downhill riding. They come in a variety of sizes to cover a range from EU 40-48, and each footbed is designed to straddle two shoe sizes. If the footbed is a little long, you can use scissors to cut off a slither of material around the toe to provide a neater fit in your shoes.
Compared to the flimsy foam material that you’ll typically find in an average mountain bike shoe, the Ergon IP3 Solestar Insoles feature a substantially more supportive three-layer construction.
The base is made from fibre-reinforced plastic, forming a stiff shell that helps to stabilise your feet inside the shoe. This is then layered with orthopaedic 3D padded foam for additional damping, and that’s then wrapped with an antibacterial carbon fabric for durability.
The goal of the Ergon IP3 Solestar Insoles is to stabilise your feet inside the shoe by reducing both inwards and outwards roll. This is claimed to reduce ankle movement, ligament strain and the chance of developing hot spots. As well as improving rider comfort, Ergon even claims they optimise power transfer.
While we can’t verify those claims, we can say that these footbeds are incredibly comfortable. They offer fantastic support without being obvious, and general knee pain has all but disappeared since using them.
If you’re someone who has multiple pairs of cycling shoes, the Ergon IP3 Solestar Insoles help to provide a more consistent fit. We swap the footbeds around between shoes, and that helps to remove one variable when dialling in the overall bike fit.
Over the last several years we’ve used a pair of these in a variety of XC and trail shoes from Shimano, Specialized, Bontrager and Fizik, both with clip-in and flat pedals. As you’ll see from the photos, that particular pair is showing signs of wear, but they’re still kicking. We’ve just received a fresh pair from Ergon’s Aussie distributor BikeBox, and these will carry on where the other pair has left off.
While they won’t work for every foot out there, we’ve been sufficiently impressed with the stability and discreet comfort of the Ergon IP3 Solestar Insoles that we can happily recommend them.
