How do you wrap your bar tape?

[Cletus Van Damme]

Sorry to hijack the thread but I have ordered some Tiagra STI's to replace the Sora ones on my Sectuer Sport. Does anybody know if I will be able to get away without having to replace the bar tape and the cable outer's etc? Sorry I am a bit of a noob but I was hoping that they used the same clamps and I could just use the ones off the Sora's with the Tiagra's. If not I will be using some of the methods listing in this thread for the bar tape side of things. Thanks

 

[Crackle]

Sorry to hijack the thread but I have ordered some Tiagra STI's to replace the Sora ones on my Sectuer Sport. Does anybody know if I will be able to get away without having to replace the bar tape and the cable outer's etc? Sorry I am a bit of a noob but I was hoping that they used the same clamps and I could just use the ones off the Sora's with the Tiagra's. If not I will be using some of the methods listing in this thread for the bar tape side of things. Thanks

I don't know, because I've never tried, if the clamp band can just be left on the bars and then the new shifter just attached to the old clamp band once you've removed it's band. See diagram here

Even if you could do that, your bar tape may be wrapped around the shifter anyway, in the figure of 8 convention, which would mean you'd have to remove the bar tape anyhow. If it isn't a figure of 8 wrap you might get away with it but the fiddle factor would be high, maybe frustratingly so.

Normal method is to strip the tape, loosen the band and slide the shifter off. Whilst you're doing the change you may as well repalce your gear and brake cables (unless quite new), as you have to virtually remove them anyway.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

Thanks for the advice Crackle. I see what you mean about the figure of 8. I will take a look and check it out. Thanks for the advice

 

[gds58]

If you start wrapping from the top (closest to the stem) then you will find that the tape wraps the wrong way so that your hands will push against the edges of the tape causing it (after a while) to start to ruck up or curl over. If you start from the bottom then it overlays the other way which means that your hands will naturally be flattening the edges down.

I know this might sound daft but try it and you will immediately see the difference it makes.

Graham

 

[brockers]

That's why pro mechanics wrap from the bottom!

Graeme

 

[zacklaws]

The way you wrap also depends upon the way that you twist your hands when your hill climbing, most people twist towards the body, which means wrapping the tape clockwise, but those that twist their hands away from the body need to tape anti clockwise. It may be the other way round, but if you visualise your hands twisting then you can work it out which way to tape, tape the wrong way and twist your hands and it has a tendency to loosen and rotate the tape. So when your out next, take note of how your hands move on the bars when you climb a steep hill

I only found about this by searching through as many web pages as I could to get as many tips as I could find a long time ago.

 

[PaulB]

Start at bottom, figure of eight at the brakes

That's my way.

 

[tyred]

I start at the top but there again I've switched to using thin tape as I find cork tape too bulky and uncomfortable.

 

[User482]

I've tried wrapping from the top and the bottom, and have noticed no practical difference either way. One thing I do is to cut a small diagonal strip from the tape at each end, making a triangle, which seems to make getting a neat finish easier. Insulation tape works much better than the tape they supply in the packet.

 

[Crackle]

I went for the piece of tape on the shifters and bottom to top. Looks neat, though I doubt I'm the world's best tape wrapper, I'm satisified with the job.