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I'm putting together my first drop bar bike and following advice on here I shall be riding it for a while without bar tape whilst I get used to it and settle on a position. Obviously the cables/hoses need securing.
Foolishly I bought some cheap electrical tape which not only has a tendency to come away from the roll in bits but also stretches too easily. I'm not sure it's up to the job of securing things whilst I ride the bike.
I have some narrow Gorilla tape (technically duct tape) that looks like it would do the job, however I'm wondering whether it might be a little too tenacious and there will be times when it needs to be removed.
Any problems or risk of damage using this on carbon bars (I think I'm probably still suffering an unnecessary concern about the fragility of carbon)?
I use decent electrical tape and it works well.
Just use decent quality electrical tape. Gorilla tape is uneccessarily strong and leaves white goo everywhere.
Decent quality PVC electrical tape and it’ll peel off clean when you need to remove it. Cloth-backed tapes will leave a sticky, lumpy mess that you need solvent to remove
Fair enough, I'll get some decent electrical tape. 3M seems to be the one that most folk use.
Diall B&Q leccy tape is pretty good. Million times better than cheap crap like in the OP.
The cloth-ish gorilla tape is bloody horrible once it's been wet, don't let it anywhere near your bike. Not for tubeless, not for this, not for anything.
Agree B&Q's own brand Diall tape is perfectly good. I tend to use temflex for everything, it's a wee bit more expensive but it's still basically cheap.
Cloth tape like tesa 51608 is another nice option, what some people call wiring loom tape- it's pretty low adhesion but sticks extremely well to itself. It ages well even in weather, is less stretchy, and looks pretty nice- or maybe it's just that it doesn't look like you've stuck your bike together with electric tape?
All my bikes have Gorilla tape tubeless setups. I've got electrical tape underneath it to keep the glue off the rims.
No problems in 10 years.
I’m putting together my first drop bar bike and following advice on here I shall be riding it for a while without bar tape whilst I get used to it and settle on a position. Obviously the cables/hoses need securing.
Why not just use proper bar tape? There's brands that don't have very sticky backing and can be easily removed and replaced. BBB Flexribbon is one I've seen recommended.
3M 33+
Put that under your bar tape too when you get to that point.