Gear

Six of the best… handlebar tape upgrades

It's a little luxury that can make a big difference to your ride, and it's important in the style stakes, too. Here are six of the best bar tapes around

What does your bar tape say about you?

Like everything, there’s good handlebar tape and there’s bad handlebar tape.
A fresh wrap of handlebar tape can make a big difference to the feel of your ride
Zipp may be best known for their wheels, but their Service Course bar tape is lovely, too
You get plenty of tape in a roll of Super Sticky Kush, so there won't be a problem even if you like to wrap your bars almost all the way to the stem
You may have seen Prologo's tape on the handlebars of the Orica-GreenEDGE team in recent years
Widget's Grip Wrap tape does the job well and won't break the bank at £14.99
Tortec are better known for making bike racks but their tape is also top notch

What does your bar tape say about you?

I love bar tape, and I’m not afraid to admit it. There’s something really satisfying about wrapping new tape on your handlebars and knowing that you’re going to break it in on your next ride.

And like everything, there’s good tape and there’s bad tape. Bad tape is hard, absorbent, slippery when wet and doesn’t last very long. Good tape is comfortable, durable, and makes holding the bars for hours on end a little bit nicer. Especially if you don’t like to ride with gloves.

Decent quality tape also tends to have a little bit of stretch to it, making it easy to achieve a nice, tight wrap, and one that won’t slip when you’re shifting your grip around on the bars.

There’s also quite wide variations between various types of tape, from feel, to padding thickness all the way down to grip, and what you’re looking for will largely depend on the type of riding you lean towards.

We’ve picked out six of our favourite tapes which will go a long way to sprucing up any ride.