Silicone/foam grips

Recently I have been feeling a bit of palm pressure when riding my Ragley hardtail. I have some ODI lock on grips on the bars, they’re pretty old and have become quite hard. What’s peoples thoughts on silicone/foam bar grips ? Do they help reduce palm pressure slightly? One review claims they’re better at shock absorbing and comfier. Looking a the Wolf Tooth Silicone grips.

I’m using SRAM lockon foam grips at the moment and found they helped a bit to stop my hands going numb.  It’s a sample of one but I like them

The Karv grips helped on my rigid bike, both with pressure and shocks. I fiddled quite a lot to get that bike comfortable, and they were a minor part of the solution. Higher rise bar and lower tyre pressure made most of the difference.

I got some esi copies off eBay to try for a couple of quid, so far so good.. search for “silicone bike grips” and order by cheapest.

Bottom line is that lockons have a bit of structure in them, usually a thin plastic tube running all the way through, whereas slipons don’t- so for the same total thickness, you get more thickness of “grip material”

I used to use ESI Racer’s Edge which I really liked, but they’re very delicate- crashes rip them up very easily, they don’t like uplift straps either. They can also be a bit slidey when muddy and wet, depending on your gloves. So I switched to ODI Floats, which are (I think) a rubber rather than silicone foam and are almost as nice in use, more consistent with mud/slime/water etc, and much more durable.

It’s not all one way though, like, I tried the ESI Extra Chunky on my rigid and found they were super comfy at first but caused me more hand cramps and tiredness as rides went on- eventually figured out that I was having to constantly squeeze the grips more.

I’ve tried ESI, Wolftooth, eBay knock offs and Bontrager.

The Wolftooth ones last ages and stick to the bars best. ESI are good. Bonty ok. Ebay cheapos were absolutely awful.

I’ve been using ESI Chunkys for a few years now. After destroying my first pair very quickly I added an old lock on collar at end to protect them, they now last indefinitely.

Multiple uplifts have had no effect either. I wear gloves almost all the time but if I don’t they leave your hands very grubby.

As Northwind says, the core of lock-on grips doesn’t help. Simply going back to push ons can make a huge difference.

There seems to be less of an issue with them slipping around carbon bars compared to the aluminium ones of yore.

Lock wire plyers are lots of fun to use.

Just to add, if you go ESI, use a gel hand sanitizer to slip them on is seconds.

The back in the day way for affixing push on grips was a good squirt of the cheapest, nastiest, UltraMegaHold hairspray you could find. Worked a treat.

Thanks for the replies, ordered some ODI F1 Vapour grips. Will report back 🙂

I have tried many grips over the years after a wrist injury.

Push on are generally better than lock ons. Grip wire or glue is cheap and adds an extra layer of security

Thick grips are not always better that thin ones.

The bar and stack height can play a bigger part than the grip itself. A not too wide bar with plenty of backweep really helps me as my wrists are in a more neutral position.

Currently i use the SQ labs 711 which have alot of rubber at the ends and it seems to work for me.

The back in the day way for affixing push on grips was a good squirt of the cheapest, nastiest, UltraMegaHold hairspray you could find. Worked a treat.

annoyingly most hair sprays these days tout their non stick formula, same with nail polishes that tend not to contain acetone as much anymore 🙄

I managed to rip an ESI chunky trying to get it on the bar 😭

Ergon fat tapered grips are the only ones I’ve found that are comfortable on a modern wide barred MTB.

Ergon are the only ones for me too.

Fitting, if you want to use something to lubricate them on it’s ime best to use nothing but isopropyl alcohol. Easiest if it’s in an aerosol, some brake cleaner like mannol is pure isopropyl. Guarantees that it evaporates away to nothing which not all gels will do. Never felt the need for hairspray, with decent grips anyway.

If you’ve got an air compressor, use that, it’s cheat mode. If you don’t, and you’re struggling, try the Cable Tie Train Tracks approach- put 3 or 4 of the widest cable ties you can find through teh grips, slide it on, it’ll go on easily as it runs on the cable ties more than the rubber. And then pull the cable ties out. This is easier if you have them smooth side to the grip!

Onzadog
Free Member

There seems to be less of an issue with them slipping around carbon bars compared to the aluminium ones of yore.

This is unintuitive but they stick best on clean, smooth bars, not on rough surfaces. SO yeah best grip I’ve ever had is on simple carbon bars where they’ve not tried to make them grippy, or painted alu bars, worst has been on anodised rougher feeling alu bars and on carbon bars where they’ve added a “grip surface”.

But the ODIs grip pretty well regardless as long as it’s clean, I’ve never used any sort of adhesion adder or lockwire or anythinh with those. With the ESIs I used to add a single wrap of cloth tape (wiring loom tape some would call it) at the end of the bar, which I know contradicts what I said up above but helped to keep water and mud out and basically stabilised the whole thing a bit, and seems to be a bit “best of both worlds”. But I don’t bother now with the ODis.

Saw the title, thought ODI F1… But I’m too late!

I was lock on grips for decades, however tried these to help with hand comfort and they are superb, now on all the bikes.

Never, ever budged at all either, on both carbon and alloy bars. Quite different to the common foam type grips.