Clipless Reebok High Tops

I think I am not alone in being aggravated at the few sneaker type urban clipless shoes that are available. Shimano makes some ugly ones, Adidas made a not so ugly one a few years back, but it has been discontinued and wasn’t really my style. I have been thinking about hacking my own for years but was never really sure how to do it or whether it was even possible. My friend Joe however succeeded over the the past summer and I finally had enough free time to try it out for myself. The key to making everything work is cutting up a donor pair of clipless shoes for the hard plastic insole. In my case I am using an older pair of Diadora high top MTB shoes. I have had these for a long time but never really wore them because they were always a little too tight, therefor making them perfect to destroy without any hesitation.

Step one is to cut as much of the upper away from the sole, as close to the sole as possible. I did this with a combo of scissors and exacto knife. After separating the upper and the sole I took a flat head screw driver and hammer and pryed my way under the hard plastic sole trying to separate it from the rubber outer sole. I found out it worked best to start at the toe and work back. Mine was glued down very well, but I am sure this step will be different for almost every pair of shoes. The very back end of the sole was held in place with tiny nails so I used vise grips to get that apart and pull out any extra nails.

Well the hard part is over, now is time to modify the shoes you plan to turn into clipless shoes. I used the old rubber outer sole as a template to mark a rectangle on the sole of the new shoe to know where to make the cut out. I used the exacto knife to make the cut.

Next slip your new hard plastic sole under the removable sole of your new shoes, place the removable sole back in on top of the plastic sole. Now from the outside if you made the hole in the correct place you should be able to mount your cleats up and give it a try. Depending on how thick your sole is and what type of pedals you have you may need shims under your cleats. I ending up needing 2 medium sized shims under each one.

If you have trouble clipping in make sure your shim height is correct and that there is enough space cut around the cleat, you may have to trim more if not.

The first shoe I did took over an hour but the second one only took about 20 minutes. Hopefully these tips will make it easier for you if you decide to try this mod out. Sorry for the phone pics, this was a late night spur of the moment mod and I wasn’t ready with the nice Camera.