..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

it's a wrap

this will certainly lower my reputation in the eyes of at least one or two. i can pretty much imagine the guys at 21st avenue bicycles in portland partaking literally of the meaning of rotfl, closely followed by several other bike workshop staff. most of the chaps and chapesses who wield spanners professionally you can picture as having been gunslingers in previous lives; the very folks who would swagger through the saloon swing-doors into the middle of a dust strewn western street. i don't wish to impress upon you that these are intrinsically bad people, simply that they generally come across as masters of their fiefdom and likely to smile out loud at the shortcomings of the home mechanic.

or, indeed, the customer who doesn't know the difference between a schrader and presta valve.

the subject almost under discussion is that of wrapping bar tape onto a pair of bendy bars. a bit like playing drums on a country and western song, it's the sort of activity that seems oh so simple until you try it. add to that the fact that certain individuals amongst us (and i confess i have my hand in the air at this point) would scarce admit to being unable to successfully wrap both sides of the bars before breakfast. it's almost like admitting to having no idea how to lubricate a bicycle chain; and you know how much we laugh about that.

it does me a great disservice to admit that i bought the new bar tape almost two months ago, yet it has sat in its delivery packaging in thewashingmachinepost bikeshed ever since it arrived in the mail. i'd rather you didn't repeat that to anyone else. and just like most things which could easily have been undertaken months or even weeks in advance, stripping off the old in favour of the new had been left until the very last minute. and in karma's inevitable way of slapping me on the face, the minute the 'cross bike was on the workstand, it started raining.

heavily.

i receive, over the course of a year, a reasonable number of bicycles for review, velocipedes which have either been despatched from taiwan fully-formed, or more or less beautifully set up in a distributor's workshop. on only one occasion in more than a decade of reviewing has the bar tape been less than immaculate.

peruse the pages of mr andrews book of cycle maintenance or perchance that offered by the publishers of haynes manuals and they will offer the same method of beautifying those handlebars, whether of alloy or carbon. start at the bar end, leaving an over-wrap that can be squished inside by the end plug before working your way up to the bulge in the centre via those annoying brake levers. that's the part that's always been the fly in the ointment; one of them is negotiated with ease while the other defies reason and leaves an unsightly gap.

and i have never been able to suss why it is that i seem to have more tape left on one side than the other. karma again.

but, and here's where the sniggering will begin, i have found an alternative method of wrapping, one that obviates the unsightly mess created by unequal lengths of black electrical tape trying to fasten the end section in place near the stem. using natural flavour cinelli cork tape, i started at the top of the bars, wrapping over the top of that first bit of tape and heading inexorably downwards to the bar ends. this allows the last bit of tape to be inserted wholesale into the bar end before being contained by the thoughtfully provided monogrammed end caps.

this offers a particularly neat finish (or start) near the stem, requiring no unsightly electrical tape or even those logo'd strips that never seem to wrap at all well. and it matters little when the inevitable happens and one side leaves more tape than the other, for the extra is simply pushed inside the handlebars. of course, those who aren't sniggering are asking "but does it work?"

i have just returned from my own version of what i like to call cyclocross, investigating the undergrowth from various disadvantageous positions. however, if i might digress briefly, i'd like to thank jeremy powers for that excellent movie on how to get on and off the bicycle when faced with adversity. i might actually be making progress. yet allowing for my tight grip on the bars while descending through the bramble bushes, a less than taut grip on the bars while running up a secluded glade and all the other manoeuvres an incompetent cyclocrosser might be expected to make, the tape remained firmly in place.

yes, i did have to re-wrap the left side up as far as the brake lever due to initial incompetence in yesterday's rain, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time that's happened. i can understand that this is a serious break with tradition, and that eddy's mechanic would never have succumbed to such iniquities, but does this face look bothered? for at least now i have a set of handlebars that look as professional as sir dave's marginal gains, and 21st avenue in portland is too far away for me to hear that raucous laughter.

tuesday 27th august 2013