Huh. Not for me.

I tend to think it's exclusively for the crowd that refuses to touch their handlebars without padded gloves (*coughroadies.. cough*). For some reason, translucent materials, at least from my experience, are never porous like cork. For gloved riders, this isn't a problem because they don't lose grip when they get sweaty. In fact, because the sweat can't soak into the material, these might last longer, stay fresh longer, and be easier to clean.

But because they're probably somewhat tacky and stretchy, at least at first, they're probably really easy to wrap and reapply.