Pre 1950s rides of LFGSS: old bikes, vintage rats, classic lightweights

Does anyone here have a pair of those William Lennon Arturo leather cycling shoes?

The insoles on mine are made of a kind of compressed cardboard or something and it's disintegrating. It's similar to the crappy insole material at the toe end of a Doc Marten boot. I was thinking of carefully removing it, using it as a template and replacing it with 2-3mm thick leather.

Edit: I've peeled one of them back. On closer inspection, the inside of the sole itself appears to be leather and it has a thin compressed cardboard insole bonded onto it with a thin crappy textile liner which has come off. I think I'll carefully remove the cardboard bit, scrape the leather inner free of debris and bond on a fresh leather insole using the old one as a template.

This was two years ago. I’ve made quite a satisfactory fix by removing the textile bit and simply using some Kiwi leather insoles cut to fit. The shoes are actually really comfortable to walk in now, and I’ve covered at least a couple of hundred miles on the bike.

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