General Cycling Discussion - Agh! Putting on cork handlebar tape

Up till now Ive always used that cloth tape stuff...now I wanted to switch to something colorful and all.

I swear to God, that stuff is bloody murder to put on! I spent an hour trying to get one handlebar done, following the directions, checking online, etc. I finally gave up.

Any tips? Its a mid 70's? Centurion road bike.

I have no idea on how to install it but I would like a ride report when you do get it installed.

First take the short "trim" pieces out. Peel the brake-lever hoods forward to expose the brake lever's body. Put the trim pieces so they're doing a "U" shape around the rear of the bar, covering the brake levers' metal clamping bands and going about 1 inch up the lever body on each side of the lever.

Now take the main spools of tape and spiral them up the handlebar starting from the drops and going to the tops. When you shingle a roof, you start from the bottom so the upper shingles overlap the lower ones... same thing when wrapping bar tape onto a bar.

When you get to the tops, pause your spiraling and hold the tape tangential to the bar at the angle that you've been spiraling it along. Grab a scissors and cut the tape with the scissors parallel to your front wheel. This makes an angled cut along the tape. Now spiral that last bit of tape around your bar and OH LOOK, the angled cut means it makes a nice flush end. :) Use some electrical tape or the provided finishing tape to secure the end of the tape.

I find that loud music and repeatedly flipping the cork tape off helps immeasurably during installation.

I do it like MechBGon does, except I wrap past where the tape will end, and trim a beveled cut around the end of the tape job using a razor knife (fresh blades only).


Oh, and use some excess bar tape over the head of a metal hammer to pound in the end caps...it keeps the plastic caps from scaring.