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Handlebar vibration dampening

9K views 12 replies 4 participants last post by  Johngalt  
#1 ·
Here’s an idea 💡; instead of buying an overpriced set of handgrips which you can never try before you buy and have to pray that you’ll like them after you shell out $10-$30 to Ali or Amazon why not just wrap the existing lame plastic OEM grips with tennis racket grip tape? I picked the thickest tape of 2mm and wrapped my left plastic grip with it.
53083

It feels much softer with significantly more girth (and we all know that girth is what really matters anyway 😜). More importantly than a luxurious feel the gell underneath the tape should soak up some vibration from the handlebars.
This is an experiment. I will report back how it goes and if the tape holds under rain and high temps. I did the left grip only to compare the vibes.

Cheerio
 
#4 ·
My main concerns are rain/heat and gloves and how all of this affects the glue on the tape. Wonder how long can it last?
I rode yesterday and did notice a wee bit less vibration on the wrapped side, but not enough to call this alone an effective solution. I’m thinking that I also need to place a cutout of an old bicycle tube inside the center handlebar mounting bracket to provide more vibration dampening to the handlebars...
Also, the 2mm tape makes the grip feel a lot thicker as if I’m holding on to a Harley Davinson grip wich is ok for me, but may not be suitable for a person with smaller hands. Feels a lot thicker.
 
#12 ·
Two months have past and I want to report back that the tennis racquet tape holds very well in the rain and sun as expected meine Herren. In my opinion this is a superior way to dampen vibration and enhance the look in a very inexpensive way. No mechanical removal of grips is required and when you’re selling the bike you can just take the tape off easily. I hope it helps.

One minor point. I used 1.7mm tape thickness wich is the maximum thickness. In retrospect, I would use a wee bit thinner tape next time like 1.5mm. In the summer it’s hard to notice the difference, but in the winter the winter gloves have much more padding, so coupled with the thick tape the grip feels a bit too thick.

Cheers!