Cycling in Sydney Australia

Bar Taping

Well, I feel like I am wading deep into bike maintenance now, having today bought citrus degreaser and lube for the first time to clean up my chain, and then, after PeterT planted the seed of an idea in my mind, I also picked up some bar tape to replace my original one.

I youtubed (is that officially a verb yet?) a how-to from here and then went downstairs and kinda winged it. Result is acceptable, not perfect but it's ok for my first time - however I am glad I got a cheaper one, if I were to spend $60 on tape and then make it look amateur, I wouldn't be impressed with myself!

The video does tell you that some gel tapes do not have a proper sticky section, so it's very easy to unroll and reroll - whereas the cork ones do stick and cannot be rerolled. I did actually start near the stem rather than at the end of the bar, since that was how the original tape was rolled, whereas the video tells you to do the opposite and end near the stem.

Anyway, I am now pretty happy with my efforts, having degreased, lubed, replaced gear cables, bar taped, replaced bottle cage and upgraded lights in the last two days!

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Comment by PeterT on August 25, 2012 at 5:05pm: That looks like a really lovely job Mike. Congrats! ... now you need to ride! :)

I've got a couple of bar-tapes lying around but have always managed squirm out of doing it and wait long enough to get them done on one of the bike services.

Well - except for the track bike which I didn't mind giving a go since there were no shifters to get around.

$60 bar tape? woah, I normally get them from $10 to $24 as fillers on my orders

Comment by Mike Stuart on August 26, 2012 at 12:25am: Yeah I stopped into Woolies' Wheels on the way home from CP... don't normally go there as it is overpriced and the staff seem to be less than helpful, their top of the range was $60 but I took the $30 tape - would have been cheaper elsewhere/wiggle but I was feeling impulsive.

Comment by John Knight on August 26, 2012 at 3:00pm: Nice work.

Coincidentally, I did mine last weekend. I had to adjust front brake cable length after changing stems and finally got out the bar tape that I bought a couple of months ago.

Mine is the super spongy synthetic type with almost no sticky on the back of it - so it was easy to back track to fix up uneven bits. I found it was not so easy to get both sides precisely the same due to the stretchiness of the the tape and it took me a couple of tries to wind the left side with the same tension as the right.

The stuff feels beautiful!

I just need to get some bonding tape to finish it off properly - the black electrical tape is not cutting it.

Comment by Mike Stuart on August 27, 2012 at 10:32am: Nice! Looks alot more professional than mine!

Comment by John Knight on August 27, 2012 at 11:14am: I can't see much difference - though you use a thinner tape that is much less forgiving of imperfections.

Mine gets a bit lumpy close to the stem - you can see it in the piccy. I need to track down the bonding tape (that doesn't unpeel) and I'll have another go at it.

Comment by Mike Stuart on August 27, 2012 at 11:20am: Mine look a bit messy towards the bar plug, I didn't let that get into my photo though!

I'm pretty happy with mine so far; no discernable comfort difference from the old ones after two days riding, and even if they're not perfect, they look better than my old worn-out tape in the first image.

Comment by John Knight on August 27, 2012 at 11:39am: Running the tape from the stem down would make it very hard for the bar plugs.

Comment by Mike Stuart on August 27, 2012 at 11:43am: Yeah, I started near the stem as that was how the originals were, but next time I'll definitely go the other way.

Bar Taping

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