I found cloth tape awesome in winter because it provides grip, but isn’t too bulky under gloves.
I lightly spray my bars with spray adhesive before wrapping. Of course, that stuff like $15 a can, so it’s not really viable to buy cheap tape and then buy spray glue.
The last lot of cloth bar tape I bought was sticky. I wrapped it over the old cork tape, so you got the thickness, plus grip. Good for winter riding.
quick opinion
take the bike below and put on some Soma Major Taylor reproductions (which is what I have now)…do you think black cloth tape up to the stem will look any good or just stay with the soma grips?
bought some nice NOS red tape from EvilBay posted for $12
cloth?cork?leather?
Sorry red cloth CATEYE. Not for the above build though…another bike I have been putting together
As long as this thread is being revived, check out this beautiful example of cloth bar tape coated in shellac.
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cecil walker in the city have cinelli cork tape for 4.95 at the moment
these bars don’t seem to be ‘finished off’ with tape.
anyone know how they do that?
a dab of glue.
They’ve wrapped it the wrong way, starting at the stem, with some overwrapping, then securing at the end with the expanding Cateye plug.
Better to start at the end and finish off with twine.
ok thanks
well maybe I’ll use glue and twine…now where do I find red twine???
started at the top- bottom stuffed in the bar ends.
can see the edge of the tape is facing up- so as said earlier has a habit of getting rolled down.
unlike if you start at the bottom and work up the edge is down.
Tis a good deal, but it’s unfortunately in absolutely awful colours, its straddling eighties retro chic and early nineties fluro rubbish.
Embroidery silk- can get it in any colour need a habedashery store - fix it with super glue on the end to prevent fraying.
Youth of today has it too easy
In my day we didn’t have super glue so we had to kill a cow - butcher it then boil it’s bones to make the glue to fix the tape on.
The rest of the cow was not wasted- we’d hang bits of meat over the frames while we rode 200 miles before work in the freezing cold of an English winter so it could cure naturally- otherwise we would have nothing to eat.
And the leather from the cow’s skin we’d tan to use as padding in out knicks !!!
But I digress :rolleyes:
Perfect match for my Travesty thank you very much. (And it makes Nikcee feel ill)
more importantly, wrap anticlockwise, (towards the frame on both sides - struggling to get my head around it while i’m not doing it). That way the tape tightens as you grip it rather than unravelling.
Ignore clock/anticlock, just start at the ends, and wrap towards the frame, finish at the stem. Works every time.
my housemate julien, aka jude on here, just did a sweet job on an ancient malvern star with some old cotton bartape and shellac.
he was asking me where he could find some ‘gumlack’ (what they call it back in france) - took me a while to realise he meant shellac.
it’s been taking a long time to dry, but looks sweet. the trick is to use white or cream-coloured tape. i expect he’ll put some pics on here.
meanwhile i was talking to an old guy who raced in the 60s, who said he used to glue on his singles with shellac. a thicker mixture than for the tape, more like glue, and aided with the heat of a small fire. he said the track officials didn’t allow it, but everyone used it, back in the day.
my first attempt at bar tape, white cotton, light cream twine, about 10 thin coats of shellac
I double wrapped the ‘tops’ to get it thicker (as I spend more time there) first wrap in the opposite direction to final
cotton whipped the end near stem.
about to do some other bars in red tape, probably dye the twine to a close match before installation