Should I rewrap my peeling handlebar tape? Is this a job for a bike shop?

Question

So after a couple of years of use or around 2000 miles, the handlebar tape is looking a bit worse for wear.

Should I change it before it gets worse and is this a simple job or best to get a bike shop to do.

I don’t really fancy taking the brifters off but I can’t see an effective way of doing the job without removing them.

To finalise :

I ended up doing the job myself, after cleaning up the bars from the old bar tape residue I decided to start from the drops and work up using a figure 8 method around the brifter.

Regarding the colour choice, online it looked much brighter and I didn’t fancy plain black.

I wouldn’t say it’s a professional job but for a 1st attempt it will do.

Answer 1

You don't need to take the brifters off to do this.

Simply "lift the skirts" of the rubber hoods and you'll see how the current tape was wrapped. Take some photos before unwrapping.

Personally I like a bit more padding from the corners to thge hoods so I will over-wrap that area, or perhaps wrap some old tape there before covering it with new bartape for two layers. Extra important on thin 80's style bars.

If you're using new tape it will probably be longer than you need so expect to trim it when you feel happy with the wrap job.

My technique is to start at the bottom and always bring the new tape "up the outside and down the inside" which means going around the brifter to reverse the flow ready for the tops.

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That bartape looks kinda cheap which contributes to its early failure. Try and use something better, definitely not $2 foam tape. Avoid light colours, they show the dirt easier. Basic black suits most things, but depending on the rest of your bike and its colour scheme you might choose a matching or a contrasting colour.

I prefer red for the lower part and black bartape on the tops and hoods.

You could also practice by removing the old bartape and re-fitting it before you stick-down any new tape. Expect to unwind it and have a couple of attempts, its all a learning experience.

Try re-fitting tape as it was, and then swap sides so the "set" is unhelpful. You might find that the scungy tape ends up elsewhere and you get another window of service out of the same tape. Maybe.

Answer 2

We'll start with the easy bit - yes, you should definitely change it!

It's a relatively simple job that doesn't require removing the brifters (you just fold back the covers).

It'll probably take you a little time for your first try, and the overlapping probably won't be quite as neat and tidy as an experienced bike mechanic would manage, but will end up fine and you'll know how to do it for next time. There's plenty of tutorials on the internet to read/watch as you go.

The only time i'd say it makes sense to have the bike shop do it is when the bike is already in the shop getting some other work done.

Answer 3

That's a reasonably easy job but you really do need to make your phone silent during the job and wish nobody rings your doorbell. The only important things that can go wrong are:

• You use a suspiciously cheap tape sold as a bicycle bar tape but it isn't. I once bought the cheapest available tape from an online bike parts shop. It wasn't a real bicycle bar tape although it was sold as such. When you attempted to stretch it, it didn't stretch. I wrapped it on my bars, carefully maintaining the tension. However, after about 1500km it was already unraveling. The reason was that the difference between no tension at all and full tension was probably less than 1% stretch whereas real tape would have more than 10% stretch
• You don't properly secure the ends of the bar tape. I have found that even some good bar tapes come with a too weak adhesive in the end tape. If you use that end tape, it will start to unravel. One possibility is to slightly melt the end tape together with a soldering iron but if you do this, don't use a good soldering iron you might use for electronics as you contaminate its tip. Instead, buy the cheapest soldering iron you can find and use it. Another option is to use self-amalgamating tape to secure the ends. It's also possible to use heatshrink if you find a tube of the correct diameter and are willing to remove the brake levers. Heatshrink doesn't require touching with a soldering iron to melt, a hairdryer or heat gun or proximity of a soldering iron tip is enough to melt it.
• You don't maintain tension when taping. This will ruin any bar tape, no matter how good. The idea of bar tape is that you tension it, and this tensioning causes it to stretch a lot (so it's very stretchy). Because losing that tension means the bar tape would have to shrink a lot, it can't lose that tension if you maintained the tension during the whole taping job. It will stay tensioned on your bars even if it moves a little on the bars, because it can't move enough to release its tension.

It's of course possible to mess up cutting the end. On one of my taping jobs, I failed to visualize how to diagonally cut the tape end. I realized it must be done diagonally, but I did it diagonally in the incorrect direction. As a result, the end looks funny. It works, though, it won't unravel so I didn't replace it.

If you ride on the drops often and want a bit of extra challenge, you could do the taping job starting from the brake levers, and moving in two directions. The benefit of doing the braking that way is that the shingles are correctly oriented both on the corners and on the drops. The usual way of taping, starting from the ends, working towards the stem, means the shingles are correctly oriented on the corners, but incorrectly oriented on the drops, so riding on the drops often could damage the bar tape. The problem of starting from the middle is that you have to estimate which point of the tape is your starting point. If you estimate it incorrectly, you may have too little tape in one direction of your bars, and too much in the other direction, but no way to move that tape from one end to another.

Answer 4

Change it, yes.

In addition to what Andy P mentioned, you now have an opportunity to make a change to the tape color(s), the brand/manufacturer, and finally the specific features of the tape. Features include thin vs. thicker tape, as well as the degree of tackiness and variance of feel to the tape. Plenty of choices that are based on personal preferences and, of course, availability.

Here is a VIDEO from Park Tools that I used recently that explained quite well how to do it yourself. This video includes the technique used to ensure that the tape is correctly wrapped on the drops as well as on top of the bar. It is all in how you manage the transition at the brifter.