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TECH NEWS
Katusha handlebar tape - 1Video: How to wrap handlebar tape
Here’s the best way to wrap handlebar tape. Well, it's the best way according to the Team Katusha mechanics.
We know that everyone has their own preferences for wrapping handlebar tape, and everyone is convinced that their way is best. Oh, we’ve had many a lively debate about it.
Do you start by going inward or outward? You do the figure of eight thing around the levers, right? How much sticky tape do you use at the ends? It’s a right old can of worms. And that’s without getting into the issue of whether the colour of your handlebar tape has to match your saddle.
Anyway, the Katusha mechanic - we don't know his name - has one side done in about 2mins, and we reckon that’s pretty good going.
How to install the handlebar tape? We show you it!Как намотать обмотку на руль? Мы покажем вам!
Posted by Team Katusha on Tuesday, 8 September 2015
Notice the use of the brake for hanging the scissors. That's pro, that is.
How do you rate his technique? Let us know down below what you do differently.
* Quick and easy for him. Not so quick and easy for the rest of us, perhaps.
Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.
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16 comments
Starting from the bar ends, wrap left hand clockwise, right hand anti-clockwise. No figure of eight on the brake levers, just a short strip trimmed off the end before I start wrapping. Before I start wrapping I put some insulation tape on the drops the wrong way round, ie sticky side out.
Lets face it, these guys probably replace more bar tape in a week than most people replace in their entire lives.
As to direction, I read somewhere that you wind depending on how your hands twist/roll when on the bars, that way when you put load on the bars/tape, you only ever tighten, rather than loosen it.
Just curious why everyone has an issue wrapping bars!
Just curious why you think they do....
Here's how I do it
https://instagram.com/p/6dRLXiAnQE/
Oh dear - I've been wrapping bottom-up but "out" all this time... oh well - guess I'll continue. Since my tape stays on a long time, I like to use heatshrink to clean up the ends. Trouble is, it has to go on before the levers and cables have to run through, so a pain to replace.
Not sure what you've done to your video feeds, but they don't play for me very well lately - I had to resort to a 3rd browser and even then they bring up an error screen with the video playing behind. Other sites' video plays fine - seems specific to Road CC
Bottom-up and "out" is grand IME, as long as you reverse at the hoods. Thing to remember when watching the mechanics wrap is that these are people doing a hell of a lot of it whilst having a shit load of other stuff to do and it doesn't have to last for that long - their priorities are rather different to many of us at home wanting to do A Lovely Job.
I do it exactly the same, except I take about three times longer to get very even spacing. I think I have a very specific form of OCD.
It doesn't change the process, but I do like to double wrap the top of the bars for a bit of extra comfort (with cross top brakes on the commuter).
I just take it to the shop to be done as my bar wrapping skills are diabolical!!
Oh dear, I've been doing it wrong for ages.
Or....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3g718-6hQ&list=PLUdAMlZtaV1333Cy1QnIZw...
Seems like none of the pro mechanics use the small piece of tape for the brake levers
I would have liked to have seen if he winds the other one in the opposite direction!
Each side should be a mirror image of the other, so yes he will have done the other side in the opposite direction, always starting with the wrap going towards the centre, wrapping OVER the bar tube
Nice how he wraps around the hood (8) !
Like the scissor hanger, nice touch. FWIW personally, with little-ish hands, I don't like a lot of tape bulk around the STIs and do like the tape to tend to tighten in (my) normal usage - so no figure of eights etc, just the covering strip at the back, start winding outwards, simple loop inside the hoods and then front to back on the tops, like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs7BY4wKHTM
Works for me, YMMV clearly. Flame on.
Just love the name, wish I'd thought of that!!!