A lot of this is personal preference. If you are using adhesive backed tape and schellacing over, it is less crtitcal, but with non-adhesive plastic or cork tape, most people think it is best to wrap starting at the bar ends. This is because this causes the adjacent turns to overlap in such a way that the hands sliding down the bars will not tend to push the tape apart as will happen if you wrap starting at the stem.
With non-adhesive tape, I first coat the half of the bars I'm about to wrap with Elmer's glue, and while it is still tacky, I insert a bit of tape in the bar end, secure with the bar plug, and begin wrapping toward the stem, keeping the tape pulled pretty tight.
Most people try not to have any gap in the tape showing around the levers, and often cut a small strip of tape to cover the back side of the bar behind the lever, then wrap over it to achieve this. I personally take the view that the mechanics for, say Bartali or Coppi, would have scoffed at this, and in that spirit, I simply wrap enough to tape around all the way around the levers, which usually leaves a small patch of bar exposed behind the lever. I then wrap up to the raised center section of the bar if it has one, or about the same distance from the stem on other bars, and secure the end with a couple of turns of plastic tape,
Regards,
Jerry Moos Big Spring, TX
devotion finesse <devotion_finesse@hotmail.com> wrote:
So now I am about to REALLY reveal myself as a "newbie"...Please bear with
me.
I am now in the process of assembling the 74 Raleigh International that I
have been gathering parts for (with much appreciated help from CR
listmembers!) and this, being my very first road bike, has brought me to an
obstacle:
I have never applied tape to a set of road drops. Sure, I have put a little
Tressoplast cloth tape on the flats of many track bars. No science there.
But multiple bends and brake calipers present a couple of new challenges.
I am hoping that some of you might have some pointers to help me get moving
in the right direction.
The International is the bronze/orange/rust color and I intend to use white
Velox tape, shellaced to match.
I have looked at every road bike locked up on the street. I have scoured
the pages of classic rendezvous looking for detail shots of bars, etc. It
seems that wrapping methods are consistently inconsistent. Is there a
"correct" way to go about doing this? Do I start at the stem and wind my
way toward the bar ends? The other way entirely? Do I wind around the bars
toward the front or rear? Any tricks for cleanly dealing with brake
calipers?
Any tips are greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Matthew "the twenty-something who is about to take off his training wheels"
Bowne
Brooklyn, New York