Giant Bicycles Line Shoes: At The Finish

Giant Bicycles Line Shoes: At The Finish – by Guitar Ted

The other day I was on a ride in the Giant Bicycles Line Shoes and I was trying to gather my thoughts on how I would wrap up this review. There were some conflicting thoughts running through my mind on where this article would land in regard to my final verdict. However; before we get into that, you may want to see where I’ve been with these shoes. You can check out the last post here.

There are a lot of things to like about these Line shoes. The roomy toe box being one of them. These are, perhaps, the roomiest shoes I have tried yet. If you have yourself some wide feet, check out Giant’s shoe line, as they seem to run wide, judging from these and the Shuttle Flats I have tried from Giant.

Then there is the bulletproof construction of the Line Shoe. I see no chinks in their armor that a typical gravel road rider might reveal while using these shoes. The rubber toe bumper and sole are suited to gravel, and the grip you get while walking on rocky surfaces is very good. So, the Line Shoes have their strong points. That includes comfort, by the way. These are quite comfortable shoes. Well…….as long as it isn’t too hot.

And that brings me to a few things that I found concerning. These shoes don’t have much in the way of ventilation. Oh, they have some air flow, to be sure, but nothing like some other shoes I have used, including some mountain bike specific shoes.

Their physical size is also a bit less roadie/gravel oriented and that can be a bit of an issue, say if you pedal “duck-footed”, where your heels might rub a seat/chain stay, or if you run your cleats more toward the outside part of the sole, which can lead to rubbing on the crank arm. The Giant Line Shoe is also not a shoe I would term as “svelte” in any sense of that word. It’s a bruiser of a shoe in a world of gravel riding where the trend is to become more road-ish, and less MTB.

At The Finish: So what do we have here then? During my ride that I mentioned in the opening, I was trying to answer this question, and I feel that the answer is this: The Giant Line Shoe makes for a fantastic enduro mountain biking shoe. Yes, you could use these for other riding purposes, but these are really mountain biking shoes in the truest sense of that genre.

My opinion is that the Line Shoe might be best for someone that has a mountain biking first bent to their riding, and if they ride back roads, well then, these shoes would be a comfortable, durable choice. The caveat being that they might be a bit toasty on hot days, and that their wide stance may interfere a bit with certain bikes/riding styles.

Of course, there are many who have said, and still have the opinion that, “a mountain bike shoe is all you need to ride gravel with“, and maybe that is true. But there are some mountain bike shoes and then there are mountain bike shoes, so not all are created equal. It is my take that what we have here in the Giant Line Shoe is a mountain bike shoe, and there are more “specific to gravel choices” one could make in footwear. This Line Shoe is a great shoe, but not a jack-of-all-trades shoe.

Note: Giant sent over the Line model cycling shoes at no charge to Riding Gravel for test and review. We are not being bribed nor paid for this review and we strive to give our honest thoughts and opinions throughout.