Took road bike in for a service.
Asked for new bar tape to be put on (Fizik Microtex £15 thank you very much).
Got bike back home realised the mechanic has wrapped from the middle of the bars to bar ends.
THE WRONG WAY!!!
On top of that one STI lever is lower than the other!
Now I didn’t specify which way but when i previously took it another bike in for a service another mechanic didn’t the the BEST tape wrapping job I have ever seen!
Wrapping the wrong way is considered neater amongst purists. I am happy to be in the ignorant minority. Go back to the bike shop and give the mechanic a pat on his back, he knows his stuff.
It’s not wrong at all, that’s the way it was done. So I do it like that on my old bikes.
Contrary to STW wisdom it doesn’t slip at all, in fact it’s very grippy.
Not like that on my new bikes though.
Uneven levers? that’s what walls and rifles were designed for. Spirit level is your friend.
But do it yourself.
how long does bartape last? DIY cos it’s only bartape 🙂 , I start from the inside and work out myself, but there again my bartaping skills are terrible, I wrap it thick where I need it the most and if it runs out at the end I don’t worry because I never hold right on the ends
I will, but I need £15 to buy another roll of tape.
I actually took the bike back in this morning to get them to correct the misaligned lever.
When I picked it up they still hadn’t fixed it.
It was only this evening I noticed the wrapping discrepancy. I thought I’d man up and take the matter into my own hands and fix the damn lever misalignment myself. thinking it was only a simple job. As I began to remove the bar tape from the centre of the bar I became quite confused and it was only then I realised how bad the situation had become.
Here is the offending bar tape
Here is a thing of beauty, executed by a different mechanic in the same shop.
Got bike back home realised the mechanic has wrapped from the middle of the bars to bar ends.
THE WRONG WAY!!!
On top of that one STI lever is lower than the other!
There was a thread on here recently where a mechanic was on asking how to wrap tape, as a customer had dropped in a (expensive) bike for some fancy new tape to be fitted. Thats why you dont take it to a shop who dosnt know what they are doing!
Oldgit and Teetosugars those are beautiful examples of bar tape wrapping.
What I cannot understand is why he used tape in the middle where he began the wrap and it’s all lumpy!
And he hadn’t cut the tape away where the lever hoods needed to press into the lever body.
I find it hard to believe that an adult can`t tape handlebars .
I just like to point out that I can wrap bar tape. 😉
It seem rude not to use their bar wrapping services while having the bike serviced. Little did I know….
As long as its neat there is no right or wrong just a personal preference
At work we alway start at the bottom and Finnish at the top as that’s what people expect and how most new bikes come
But going then other way is my own preference