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Wrapping Bars – Fun and Frustrating

05.18.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 14 Comments

This afternoon, I put my bike on the workstand and remounted the handlebar. Why the bar was off in the first place is a whole other topic, and I’ll probably post on it next week, when that saga comes to an end — I hope.

Anyhoo, I got the bar positioned the way I want it, then got the brake levers back on.  I even rode the bike around the block to make sure the levers were just where I was most comfortable with them.

Back in the garage, it was time to do one of my most favorite bike maintenance activities — wrapping new bar tape.

Freshly wrapped. Looks pretty good -- but wait. (Notice the leftover tape dangling from the shift cable?)

Why fun? Well, if you’ve never tried it, take a shot and see for yourself. With a little bit of care and patience, your bike can assume a whole new character in a matter of minutes. Or, you can do as I did, and use the same old black tape. I think it gives my bike a slightly understated look, and that’s fine with me.

There’s only one problem with wrapping tape: starting and stopping. Okay, two.

To start, you leave a bit of tape hanging down at the end of the handlebar. Then you have to make sure you pull the tape taut while wrapping it, or you’ll get gaps in the wrap — and we can’t have that.

Eventually, you get to the point where you want to stop, and here’s where one of my continuing bar wrapping problems crops up. I see all these pictures of nice bikes with one wrap of contrasting color tape to seal the wrap job. When you buy bar tape, you get a short length of the end tape — maybe it has the manufacturer’s logo on it, maybe not. But it’s all of three or four inches long, and only a half inch wide.

But the bar tape itself is wider than that. So one wrap of the contrasting tape won’t cover the whole end of the bar tape, and you get a square-edged corner sticking out from under. I don’t like the feel of that.

So I do it the Bike Noob way. I use black electrician’s tape to seal the job, and I cover the entire width of the bar tape, plus some.

At least it's a comfy place to rest my hand.

This is one of the reasons I prefer black bar tape. My electrician’s tape overdose is not so obvious to the casual observer.

Once I’ve overdone the electrician’s tape, it’s time to go back to the beginning. The length of tape left hanging from the bar end gets pushed into the bar, and kept in place with a bar end plug.  Sounds easy, but mine always comes out like this:

Lumpy on the left, lumpy on the right. Help!

No set of instructions on bar taping clearly explains how to cleanly get all the tape into the bar end and plug it without leaving unsightly lumps. Anybody got any pointers?  I’d love to hear ’em. In another week or so, I’ll be replacing the handlebar, so I’ll be going through the whole process all over again, and I’d sure like to get a clean looking end.

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Categories // Accessories, Maintenance Tags // bar tape

The wrap job

05.05.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

Had an hour to kill the other day, so I finally gathered up my stuff and went out to the garage to perform major surgery on the bike. OK, it wasn’t major by any means, but it did repair some damage, and did alter the look of the machine. I put on new bar tape.

A number of readers weighed in a few weeks ago about which way I should go on the tape. Thanks for your input. I decided on black, which is the way I had been leaning anyway. Since the bike came with a white saddle, which I had changed to a black one because I didn’t like its looks, why would I put white tape on the bars? I already knew I wasn’t crazy about the blue. It pretty much had to be black.

At the MS 150 Bike Expo in Houston, I found some tape that filled the bill on a number of fronts. It was black. It was relatively cheap — $10. And it was a cork-gel compound that feels squishy to the touch.

It was instructive to peel off the old tape. On the drops, I found some gel inserts that the Specialized factory apparently puts in place before they wrap the stock tape. That was a nice bonus. I’ve never developed the ability some bikers have of reading the road through their hands on the bars. I much prefer a cushioned place to grip during a ride. Furthermore, the new tape gives the bike a slightly more subdued appearance, which appeals to me.

beforeafterThe Before and After look.

I’m afraid inside the garage at night doesn’t give the same quality picture as outside during the day does, but you get the idea.

New bar tape is one of the easiest things you can do to change the look of your bike. The possibilities are endless. You can keep it simple, or make it flashy. It’s an easy do-it-yourself job that takes less than an hour — even if you have to unwrap and rewrap portions along the way. Who knows? Maybe in another year, I’ll be ready for yet another look. Maybe some of that marble pattern…

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Bar tape

04.07.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 13 Comments

As my MS 150 ride fast approaches — just a week and a half away — I’m giving some thought to improving the looks of my bike.  After all, I don’t want to be in the middle of thousands of other bikers on something that looks less than pristine, right?

It really should be replaced, don't you think?
It really should be replaced, don't you think?

When I bought the bike last year, it came with soft, squishy gel tape.  But my crash in November ruined the tape on the left handlebar.  I haven’t done anything about it, mainly because it stayed in place, and didn’t unravel like I thought it would.  But now, I’m getting over the “badge of honor” look, and I’m thinking about getting some new bar tape.

I’ve been down this road before.  On my old Raleigh, the cloth tape was all torn and ratty, so I replaced it — but with cheap cork tape.  I figured if I made a mess of the wrap job, I wouldn’t be out much money.  It looked pretty good when I finished, and then I found that I had wrapped it backward, from the middle out to the end, instead of from the end to the middle.  Hey, I found these instructions online, and I just followed them, you know?

It stayed together though, but it was firm tape.  I’m spoiled by the gel tape now.

I’ve noticed you can get gel inserts that glue onto the handlebar, then you wrap your tape over the inserts.  That looks interesting.

My other issue is color.  The bike came with blue bar tape.  While I like my bike, I’ve never been crazy about the blue and black color scheme.  So I’m leaning toward plain black tape.

Here’s your chance to weigh in on which way I should go.  Black gel tape?  Other ideas?  What brand?  Or, should I keep that “badge of honor” look, to remind me not to ride stupid?

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