I like cotton. It transmits every unevenness in the road surface, and gives me the kind of "seat of the pants" feeling I like. In cars and on bikes.

Well, I actually went to their website (still in business and they've expanded) and learned that they say: "Foam Tubing Materials We Work With:

Grab On uses some of the finest closed cell foam tubing..."
but they don't use neoprene, they use either Nitrile (NPVC) or EPDM...but they say that they use high-speed grinding to shape the materials, that would expose at least a layer of closed cells on the surface. I imagine that break-down as the material ages might also make the closed cells become more "open" but not really sure...foam "rubber" isn't a material I've studied much.

I was cheap and bought one set of Grab Ons and used two pieces on just the drops on each of the 2 bikes I had at the time. Had black cloth on the tops. Looked even crappier, if that is possible. They did start to retain water as time went on, as I remember.

What did you remove? That was perfect!

I think Chombi had it right in his outline, though the plastic tape certainly was in use earlier, and the British had these rubber sleeves they seemed to like.

Back in the 70s, we'd just keep adding on the cloth tape over the old when it got torn or dirty. By the time you got 5 or 6 layers on there it was really comfortable. I like the padded vinyl now, hate the cork. My main bike had cork and I just added padded vinyl over it.

And I think using the foam tubes was a grass roots invention. Late 60s, early 70s we'd get a length of pipe insulation at the hardware store and use that, under plastic usually.

I have several types of NOS plastic tapes that are dating of the fifties, early sixties.
Things like Gelmtape, plastilac, others. These are not the electrician tape but tick, paterned or not ...

An example :
http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2012/...3110489640.jpg

This bike is not mine

LoL that was my thought exactly.

My 70s PX-10 with the thin bars have at least two or three layers of cotton...

1930s the rubber end grips were popular and have many choices in the 1939 Brown's catalog. In the 1952 Brown's, there is cloth tape in a variety of colors. 1982, Cinelli introduced the "cork" ribbon (actually EVA foam).

Does anybody know when Benotto tape first came on the market? Late '70s?