Lock Laces For Triathletes

Transitions are the often forgotten element exploited by under-powered triathletes like myself. Meet Lock Laces, your new secret for faster transitions.

Ever done a triathlon? Man, I love them. I have never competed in an event that was more all-encompassing, challenging and exhausting, than the local sprint tri held here in my hometown.

For many of us, it’s the one training event we prepare all year for.

Creating a competitive time or personal best in a triathlon not only requires incredible speed and endurance from a fitness perspective, it also requires you to be able to change rapidly from sport to sport with no delay.

The transitions of the sport require just as much prep and fore-thought (and practice!) as the other elements of the race. Let’s take a quick look at the last transition -- the one from the Bike to the run (also known as Transition 2 or T2, for short), and how something like Lock Laces can make the transition faster.

Lock Laces For Faster Transitions

Transitioning in T2 is all about getting your feet from your pedals and into your shoes so you can run. (Its probably a great idea to take off your bike helmet as well.)

Most triathletes go ahead and unbuckle their bike shoes as they are coming up to transition. Then they can slip their feet out and run in their bare socks with their bike through the transition area.

Getting into your shoes is the next trick. For most people, its going to take at least 30 seconds to tie laces -- if not longer. And 30 seconds is a long time and would require a lot of effort to try to make up on the race course -- especially if you are doing a sprint triathlon.

Lock Laces are designed to get you past that. By using elastic laces, such as Lock Laces, you can easily slip your feet into your running shoes and be ready to go instantly -- while others are still fighting with their knotted laces.

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The cool thing about Lock Laces is that they are a one-size-fits-all shoe system that works for any triathlete. You just lace up your shoes and lock them in at the correct tightness. Then they are always ready to go.

Heck, you might fall in love with the convenience of Lock Laces so much that you buy one for every shoe you have. (Don’t buy them for the slip-ons. I tried that once. Didn’t do me much good. Didn’t work on the flip flops either.)

Lock Laces are designed a lot like mini-bungee cords with multiple strands of elastic so that they can’t easily get worn through or break. Plus, their locking system uses a metal spring to secure the lace, so that once you get them knotted in place, the lock does a really good job holding them there.

Importance of a Fast T2 Transition

I know we alluded to it earlier, but the importances of speedy transitions are often under-emphasized. I was amazed early on, at how much time I could gain in transitions.

My first ever experience with a transition was at a duathlon in a run-bike-run configuration. I’m not much of a runner, so I ended the run in the top 20. Then, we went to the bike. Since I had an old beater bike with flat pedals, I didn’t have to worry about changing my shoes. I clipped on my helmet and passed 5 people (Crazy, right?) in the transition. These were people that had worked like mad to pass me on the road. Poof. All their hard work was gone.

T2 was the same way. I came in about 3 on the bike and passed one of my competitors in transition. I never did win top spot, but finished #6 (man, that was a long time ago)

That said, without a speedy transition, I would have finished much, much lower.

Lock Laces Intructions

Lock laces are easy to use. You thread them through your shoe like any other lace. However, they do have nice curved tip that makes them easier to thread into athletic shoes. you then thread each side through the Lock and clip it tight. Knotting the laces helps maintain proper tension.

The key is to find a tightness that will support your foot efficiently and won’t leave you with a flopping shoe that causes pain, while still keeping them loose enough to make it easy to get into the shoe.

In my experience, I like to keep them a little on the tighter side, but each runner needs to spend some time on their practice runs figuring out what works.

I have never done long-distance events, but a lot of long-distance runners attest to the fact the elastic laces don’t provide enough support for long distance events. Once again, experimentation is key to find out if your feet can use this speedy weapon.

Lock Laces Reviews

Lock laces are one of the premier brands of elastic laces that triathletes turn to. And they must be doing something right. On Amazon, they have 125 5-star reviews out of 161 total reviews. That’s pretty exciting.

I, personally, had an older, hand-me-down pair, but didn’t have any complaints.

Lock Laces vs. Speed Laces vs. Yankz

There are a lot of different brands of elastic laces out there. I mention Lock Laces since they have the biggest following in the athletic world and the ones I feel best about. However, the others are all about the same... they just have a different locking mechanism.

Yankz laces are a little weird because they have you thread them upside-down. That means it can be a little harder to change the tension as you them dialed in to your running needs.

And Speedlaces are great, just they have never picked up as large a following as Lock Laces. Plus, they don’t have that cool, patented, spring device to hold them in place.