Beautiful bikes don’t happen by accident , take it back be clear and specific or learn to do it yourself and take care.

Oldgit- that is a very nice looking bike.

I’d say stem to bar end IS the right way (if there is such a thing). The fact that so many people get it wrong (imo obviously 😉 ) does not make the other way correct.

But seriously…..paying someone else to service your bike…..would you pay someone else to service your wife? Paying for a service is for pros busy doing press conferences and having massages or the chronically inept who wouldn’t even notice how their bars are wrapped. Doing it yourself means you get to ‘know’ your bike. You and your bike need to go to marriage counselling!

That’s cheating! There should be a continuous length of tape from start to finish, with no patching.

If you are riding cross, and riding it hard and muddy with the odd tumble you will be doing well to get more than three months from it, so just get on and ride it and ride it dirty.

Thats not patching its the little bit of tape you get given to wrap the lever .Having said that it is easily possible to cover the back of the lever without it

This is how it’s done

He’s done that before.

you dont even need to be that careful, if you make a mess of it, unwind it and do it again.
and again

and start from the stem and wrap down, like i did on my racer when i was 11

whats with the sticky backed bar tape shops love to sell these days.

If its wrapped correctly theres no need to have it stuck down , annoys the tits out of me since you cant reuse it 😉

the tape on my roadie – profile cork with no adhesive has been on my bike since 2009 – and its done a power of miles.

Wrapping the wrong way is considered neater amongst purists

As Herman says, if you start at the top and end at the bottom of the drop you dont need any finishing tape so it actually looks neater.

I’m a recent road convert so only taped a few bars, but I found wheel building simpler to get right than bar taping (my first wheel was perfect, my first bars an abomination to my OCD tendencies).

And yes you can re-wrap the same tape.

Nice vid here on how how to wrap, direction change about hoods also means that that hands naturally tighten on the drops and the tops – also no need for those little bits behind the hoods.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcS5fqm-030[/video]