I’m a bit late to the party with carbon aero road drop bars.
I can’t decide whether to tape traditionally or just the drops up to the flat tops.. I can see it would look better untapped but I would never have considered not taping round bars almost up to the stem.
So what do you do and why?
I don’t have aero bars but recently I have only been taping as far inboard as my hands would go. I never want to hold the bars more than a bandwidth (ish) from the hoods so that’s where I tape to.
My new roadbike has those weird canyon bars with removable drops, so that removable bit is taped (a few cm after the curve). I like how it looks but I think it would look less good on round bars so I'll stick to the traditional taped tops on those.
As far as comfort goes it doesn't make much difference to me. When I'm using the tops I tend to be resting my hands there rather than gripping.
I kept my DHB Primavera completely untaped, their shape and bit of flex suited me well.
Mine are currently not taped at all, just got plugs in. Don't miss it, even in winter. The only time you need to grip road bars are when you're sprinting, and I don't sprint in the rain very often.
My latest build is untaped. It helps that the bars are internal cabled (cable enters the bars just behind the shifters, and exits next to the stem clamp.
Comfort is fine. I had to bodge the bar plugs to fit properly, as most are sized to fit with an end of the bar tape tucked into the bar/ plug interface
Just past the bends. As aero bars have a bigger circumference so wonts go as far anyway unless you go for little overlap
Phttt, bartape is for pussies. Drillium is lighter and gives better grip. 🙂
