SJX426 

So there are a number of threads addressing bar wrapping. Buried in nearly each is a short discussion on how to wrap around the brake lever base.

1. What is your favorite approach and why?
2. Does anyone wrap without the lever attached with just the band in place and the lever mounted on the tape?
2b. If this configuration is avoided, why?

I was considering 2 in order to transfer brake levers without disturbing the tape wrap. The reason is that I have two configurations for the "cockpit" and having only once set of levers, I wanted to be able to transfer them. Changing them wouldn't happen too often.

rhm

1. How I wrap a bar depends on what the hoods are, and I suspect I do it differently almost every time.

2. Not I.

2b. If the levers have hoods and you can make it work, why not? But I am not good at attaching levers to separated bands.

SJX426 

rhm: I agree with you comment on 2b. Some mounting configurations would be really difficult like Universals where a cap screw comes from the front and screws into a loose nut behind the band clamp! The only way I have been successful with this one is to use RTV to locate and kinda hold the nut in place while gingerly starting the cap screw. The levers in question are Campy Super Records where the bolt is part of the clamp and a nut is tightened from the front. The opposite of the Universals and makes 2 much easier.

I suspect that most levers are mounted by sliding the assembly over the bars, then tightening the clamp as opposed to sliding the mount on the bars, then mounting the lever base to the clamp.

rootboy 

1) I cut a short, 2.5 inch piece off each roll before starting, to cover the bands.

2) I always wrap with the band only in place. Levers removed.

I often put a small piece of plastic tape on the band to hold it in place once I've positioned them correctly. The short, covering piece of bar wrap material doesn't accomplish this because it is just barely wide enough to cover the back side of the bands, because...I always use cloth bar wrap.

eschlwc

1. i use the figure eight approach.
2. i've never thought of wrapping without the levers in place.

John E

1) Always bottom-to-top, clockwise (as viewed looking into the end of the handlebar) start on the right and anticlockwise start on the left.
2) Levers in place, but hoods peeled forward or removed.
3) Sometimes use rootboy's strips-over-the-bands trick, which we always used when I worked at a bike shop.
4) One-piece wrap, except with very thick and inflexible tape which can't make the bend elegantly.
5) Barcon shift cables emerge forward from the lower portion of the handlebar bend.
6) With thin, flexible tape, I like eschlwc's figure-eight. With heavier tapes, I just continue the spiral pattern.

otg 

I've always done my own wrapping, and really they never come out exactly the way I would want them. I got a nice old Trek a while back at a LBS in MA, and as part of the deal they redid the bars for me. It took the guy all of 10 minutes and they are perfect. I guess it just takes practice.

Saguaro

This video from RivBikeWorks is quite instructive:

https://youtu.be/tO8DcaOJzrA

And here is how my bar tape turned out using this method:

Drillium Dude 

+1 this approach - with Campy levers, it's so simple even a caveman can do it

Talk about a clean look once you're done with the tape and you remount the lever itself:



DD

jimmuller 

On occasion I have taken the trouble to cover the mounting band with a strip of tape. Sometimes I haven't, and even just wrapped the tape once diagonally under the lever and kept going. Someone in C&V called me out about it once. So I consider it a "trademark" of my wrapping. It doesn't bother me functionally one bit while riding, and to a trained eye it looks cool. Function over beauty!

SJX426 

Great replies! Thanks. Settled in my approach now.

jimmuller: took the shortcut for my TREK with a temporary applicaiton:
[IMG][/IMG]

Chombi

I always wrap my bars with the levers already in place, with mounting bands fully tightened, as I would be more sure that the lever body is fully bedded/making full, good, mechanical contact with the bar.
If you have flexible tape material between the lever body and the bar, there's a possibility that the wrap might eventually compress more at the contact points between the bar and the lever body and the lever might loosen up from the bar at the worst time......

Chombi

SJX426 

Chombi,
Thought of that. If you check them often enough, even cork will get to a point where there isn't any are left to compress. It is a risk issue though. I have that problem with Universal brake levers anyway, without tape being under the base! I fear breaking the sides out of the base. It is a casting with a design that increases force outwardly as you tighten the band. Not a good design to begin with, like a new college grad designed it!. The Campy design is better by not forcing the band against the base of the lever. Now you got me going. I will have to check out the other levers I have!

1987

To me the most logical way to wrap is like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs7BY4wKHTM

So that you tighten the tape when you ride.
Not as RivBikeWorks shows in their video above

randyjawa 

This is How I Wrap Handlebars. And this is the result...











Why do I use this method? Because it seems to be easy to do and looks pretty good when done. Just my opinion, of course.

old's'cool

Quite right... trying to secure a highly stressed connection with a flexible material in series should be avoided. As noted below your post, at the very least, regular monitoring and re-tightening is necessary when this norm is not followed.

As for the OP, my take is, back in the day (), when wrap was thin and supplied in generous lengths, you could be very creative in how you wrapped the brake levers; it was hard to go wrong. Nowadays, with the current "cork" [foam] tape, not so much. You have to be very exacting in how you wrap the levers, not to mention how much overlap you use generally, in order to have enough tape from one package to reach the end of your wrapping job (whether at the top or the end ).

1987

A "modern" method:
https://www.bikemojo.com/speak/showth...379#post790379

The Golden Boy 

I have a wrapping question...

Last year I got my hand crushed- nothing broken, but it's a year later and it's still painful, crunchy, swelly and it generally sucks- and a 10 mile ride is about all I've been able to put up with. I have had my stems at the full extension, to keep some of the weight off my hand- but has anyone added more padding underneath the wrap- either as a wuss move or as an adaptive feature?

due ruote 

If I'm wrapping with older hoods, esp. with cloth tape, same as Rootboy. I've never had any issues whatsoever with levers coming loose, even with cork tape. A minor downside of this technique is that occasionally the hoods don't completely cover the lever base, so a little strip of metal might be visible. I'd rather deal with that than a torn hood.

If the hoods are new like Shimano or Tektro and quite pliable I will roll them back and tape with the levers in place.

southpawboston

This is interesting to hear, Rootboy. I never did this until recently, when I had to re-wrap the bars on my Mercian after swapping out the stem. The Weinmann gum hoods have become hardened and brittle, and peeling them back far enough to wrap the tape beneath them would have resulted in them cracking. So I just removed the levers and held the clamps in place with tape. After wrapping, I just mounted the levers, with the hoods already in place. Worked like a charm!