cyrano138

A while back, I asked about getting some non-padded, cloth bar tape. You guys told me where to find it and someone suggested that if I put it on, I should post a couple of pictures, so here goes:


This picture (above) is the old setup with the fake cork wrap.








These last two show the difference, which is small, in how it looks. It's a little less bulky, which looks nice.

I can say, after taking a ride with it today, that I had no trouble riding without the cushion or shock absorption, and felt like I had a much stronger grip on the bars. It's a lot less slippery than the cork and since the bars aren't as thick around, I felt like I could grip it a lot better.

By the way, the tape is Velox Tressostar. I got it at my LBS for five bucks. Highly recommended.

Cy Trivialities

i have the same tape. for longer rides, i need gloves. too much road vibration sucks on the wrists for long durations.

beeftech

Those look like terribly uncomfortable bars.
The only slightly comfortable position I can imagine is on the hoods... if it actually had any.

Otherwise decent wrap job, way to HTFU and use cloth.

cyrano138

I can't take credit for the wrap; the mechanic did that.

As for the positions, I can get reasonably comfortable on the tops of the bars, a couple inches from the stem, and in a pseudo-bullhorn type of position. The drops are great for sprinting and pulling, but I'm pretty stretched out in that position so those are strictly utilitarian.

Jabba Degrassi

I want to have this printed on little pieces of over-head projector film and tape them to the inside of my sunglasses as a constant reminder of how much harder I should be riding.

dayvan cowboy

i used cloth for awhile, but my town has tons of brick streets and the rest of the streets aren't that good either so it eventually started hurting in the wrists.

dansjustchillin

You can do this with cloth tape

cyrano138

^Cool!

Jabba Degrassi

My problem with un-shellacked cloth tape was that it leaked glue all over my hands. At first it was only happening on longer rides, but after a while it was pretty much like that all the time. It was gross. After an hour or two in the saddle my hands felt like I had just spent a week outside a porn shop shaking hands with everyone who walked out the door. Or at least, I would imagine that's what it would feel like..........

cyrano138

^With our heat index pushing 100F this week, I'll be able to see pretty quickly if this is going to be a problem. If anyone's interested to know how the cloth wrap works, I'll post back in a while.

CliftonGK1

I see you're in FLA, which means you probably ride through some heavy rain once in a while. If I were you, I'd get to putting some shellac on that tape.
I've got blue/white harlequin wrap using Tressostar tape on my fixed gear, and enough coats of shellac to make it smooth and shiny. I've put in a lot of rainy weather miles, and a lot of hot weather miles, all without any problems. No worries about it getting soaked through with rain or sweat, or about glue seepage when it's 90+ degrees.

Zemo

Looks good! looks about like mine did...I definitely recommend you shellac 'em.

Redline927

shallac made my bars slippery as hell when my hands got sweaty. sure looked nice though.

Thetank

its much better if you get a cheap roll of cork tape and wrap the bars and then use the cloth over that. The cork will absorb vibration while the cloth will give you the grip you want and make the bars look cool as well. Your hands will thank you for it and so will the rest of your body.

Cy Trivialities

ur bars will also be super thick using two layers of bartape... not a fan.

Jabba Degrassi

And your bars will be super hard on your hands/wrist/elbows/shoulders using one layer of cloth bar tape. You can't have it both ways.

Cy Trivialities

thats wat my gloves are for dude! Lol.

steveymcdubs

How well would cloth over cork hold up in the rain? Would it stagnate?

Jabba Degrassi

If I were doing that I would definitely shellac it! Forget about rain, can you imagine how bad your sweat would smell after a fermenting in there for a few months?!

pompadork

I just taped up my nitto drops with some toshi cloth. Pretty sadlife tape job, I must say.

steveymcdubs

But wouldn't shellac negate the grip that cloth brings?

Jabba Degrassi

I have no idea anymore. Everyone should just use Fizik bar tape end of story.

adriano 

specialized tape is superior in my opinion.

Thetank

Not really that's why I said to use cheap tape or you can use gel tape as well. I had a set of bullhorns wrapped like this and they were comfy and grippy.

Thetank

What would make you think it wouldn't evaporate any less than any other type of bar wrap? And why are you smelling your bike?