Finally got around to removing my chicken levers from the cross bike today. What started as a quick job of replacing the gap in the cable outers with middleburn cable oilers turned into frayed cables (and tempers), a trip to the bike shop for new cables and outers and fresh bar tape.
Still not happy with the bar tape finish but I'll be fecked if I'm wasting any more than the 2 1\2 hours I've wasted today.
Mother flipping bar wrap...
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- voodoo_simon
- Posts: 4344
- Joined: Fri Apr 26, 2013 9:05 pm
Re: Mother flipping bar wrap...
Bar tape is an art, takes a while to get the trick of doing it. Used foam tape for years and got it acceptable, but put on fizik last time and made a mess of it 

- TheBrownDog
- Posts: 2108
- Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2013 8:46 pm
- Location: Chilterns
Re: Mother flipping bar wrap...
Dont talk to me about wasting time. Dont even start. I was quite happily replacing a gear cable on my wife's bike this afternoon when somehow the end stop that normally fits elegantly and gracefully into the shifter pod decides it wants to jam itself in there and not come out. Ever. It's a real old Deore jobbie and it took me close on 3 hours to pull it apart, find all bits that hit the floor when the internal springs sprung, and then get it all back together (which required me to grow a third hand, by the way). Bar tape. Pffffftttt.
I'm just going outside ...
Re: Mother flipping bar wrap...
I'm a bit of a dab hand with bar wrapping,
What I do is first remove adhesive from tape. Apply double sided tape to bars that way the bartape always sticks to the bars not itself and when you comed off and rip the tape it doesn't start unwinding.
Its the second bar thats hard but i just refer to rhe finished side everycouple of wraps to make sure the overlap is similar.
The last thing is finishing decide the finishe point tape it tightly but don't over stretch the lecky tape then cut the bar tape at the edge of the lecky tape.
Then go mad because the hole in the cable outer isn't inline with the hole in the shifter and you can't feed the inner through.
What I do is first remove adhesive from tape. Apply double sided tape to bars that way the bartape always sticks to the bars not itself and when you comed off and rip the tape it doesn't start unwinding.
Its the second bar thats hard but i just refer to rhe finished side everycouple of wraps to make sure the overlap is similar.
The last thing is finishing decide the finishe point tape it tightly but don't over stretch the lecky tape then cut the bar tape at the edge of the lecky tape.
Then go mad because the hole in the cable outer isn't inline with the hole in the shifter and you can't feed the inner through.