Nimbl is not a large company—as of early 2024 it had fewer than 20 employees. Its size has not limited its impact, however: the company sponsors over 100 riders in the men’s and women’s World Tours. This is in part due to its relationship with team Visma-Lease a Bike, which began in 2022 and peaked in 2023 when the team won the men’s Tour, Giro and Vuelta with three different riders, all wearing Nimbl shoes.
How did this partnership come to be? We spoke with Nimbl’s sales director, Wietske Zwart, to find out more. Nimbl was founded in 2019 by Francesco Sergio, an industry veteran, who was previously head of sports marketing for Cervelo. As a result of his relationships with riders, he was able to quickly start outfitting pros with Nimbl footwear. This put Nimbl on Team Jumbo-Visma’s radar (now Visma-Lease a bike). The team reached out to say that “they were interested, as Nimbl came out of multiple tests as the best shoes for the team (in stiffness, durability, weight, delivery, flexibility of the company). Ultimately they made an agreement to support the team with Nimbl shoes [with] full support and exclusivity.”
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Design and Construction
(Image credit: Tyler Boucher)
The Ultimates, like all of Nimbl’s shoes, are handmade in Italy. The construction is quite traditional: a carbon sole is sewed to a microfiber upper, with two Li2 BOA dials serving as the retention system. The BOA wires go over a padded tongue that rests on top of the foot in the familiar crossed silhouette of standard shoelaces. What makes Nimbl shoes unique is the design of the sole—instead of being entirely underneath the foot, it comes up around the edges to create a tub or trough shape. This shaping is slight around the forefoot, but is much more significant at the heel where the carbon sole rises almost halfway up the shoe.
This design allows for the seams connecting the sole to the upper to move from beneath to outside of the foot where there’s more available overlap. This makes for a better connection between the two components and removes material from underneath the foot, allowing for better power transfer and reduced stack height. This shape also allows the soles to be very thin, since the edges add stiffness. At 360 grams for the pair (size 41), this is one the lightest shoes on the market, and the Nimbl Air Ultimate model, which has laces, is even lighter.
Because of this design and the added width of the edges, the forefoot of the Nimbl Ultimates looks wide, but inside it feels like a standard width racing shoe.The heel is cut fairly low and is not particularly narrow. The shoe fits low to medium volume feet best.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t transformed into a Grand Tour contender overnight when I rode in the Nimbl Ultimates; it seems there’s slightly more to it than that. I did get along very well with the shoes, however. The low weight is immediately noticeable when you try the shoes on—they feel like slippers. On the bike this is less apparent, though the reduced mass rotating around each pedal stroke should result in fresher legs at the end of a long day.
I was most impressed by the power transfer. Because the soles are so thin, I felt extra planted on the bike and connected to the pedals. The shaped edges of the carbon soles keep your feet locked in, which translates to more efficiency of movement. I have a feeling this is what attracted Visma-Lease a bike to Nimbl in the first place. The team is known for its exhaustive testing methods, and it makes sense that they would look at shoes as a place to gain a competitive advantage. Also notable is the fact that Nimbl makes a special sole for Speedplay pedals. This means no adapter is needed to use Speedplay’s proprietary four bolt cleats.
With that said, the shape won’t work for everyone. Because the soles come up around the edges of the foot, there is zero flexibility in terms of width. You either fit or you don’t, and Nimbl only offers a single width.
The microfiber uppers aren’t particularly breathable, and the wraparound sole also inhibits airflow, so if you get sweaty feet then these may not work well. There are a few holes drilled in the soles. I was also not very impressed by the insoles. For such a high-end product, they should be more refined than just a thin foam insert.
The Ultimates are available in three different color options, all of them white. The differences are in the accent color. My test shoes had gold accents, but they are also available with silver or black. I received a lot of compliments while wearing the shoes. They seem to elicit a positive response.
Off the bike, the wide heel pieces make the shoes very stable to walk in. It is surprising how often walkability doesn’t seem to be considered by cycling shoe designers, but Nimbl has done a good job here.
Finally, Nimbl has just released a new shoe model, the Exceed Ultimate Glide that supersedes the Ultimates as its top end offering. The Ultimate Glide has an updated sole design (it retains the same cupped heel that is Nimbl’s signature) and an upper with a design more similar to Shimano’s S-Phyre shoe—instead of a standard tongue in the middle of the foot it has a wrap around design of two halves that overlap. I would imagine this would improve power transfer even more, but we’ll just have to wait and see how they perform in the Grand Tours in 2024.
Value and Conclusion
(Image credit: Tyler Boucher)
In terms of value, it’s very hard to argue a case for $549 shoes. They may be very good, but there are also excellent shoes available for half that amount. If you want to wear the shoes that Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard wear, then expect to pay handsomely for them. Trek’s new RSL Knit shoes are in the ballpark at $500 as are Sidi’s Shot 2S at $525, so the Nimbl’s aren’t a complete outlier.
Because the company is so small, it doesn’t have distribution set up everywhere yet. Nimbl has only recently started working with stores in North America, and there aren’t many with shoes in stock. Ordering directly from Nimbl’s website is an option, but this doesn’t help if you want to try them on first.
With all three Grand Tours conquered, the next challenge for Nimbl seems to be one of distribution and scaling up production. The company has already demonstrated that its products work for athletes at the pinnacle of the sport. Also, me.
