IsleRide

Nah, it's not height. The height is the maximum above the minimum insertion point. It is then the "length" of the quill.

Wildwood 

did not read responses, maybe a duplicate reply

As always = it depends. Top to bottom or opposite, depends on the bar end plugs. For Benotto tape/ribbon/vinyl with plugs over the bar, i will start at the bottom. Generally i start on the tops.

BFisher

It doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of experience out there with the padded Newbaum's tape.

I'd take the edge thickness into account and go from there. It may work fine either way. For me, if the edges had a tendency to lay proud, I'd wrap bottom up.

Tomm Willians

You rebel suggesting that perhaps it’s a personal choice and not the 11th Commandment!!!!

thook

sure...i know what the height is. i just misunderstood mooney's initial post when he said tech's weren't "long" enough. i thought he was referencing the height of them when someone made the remark of getting the bars up higher. make sense?

mattk42

Yikes this is getting kinda feisty for a C&V thread. The topic, I suppose?

I have one of each style on my drop-barred bikes. Drop bar MTB has barcons, to avoid tucking, I wrapped bottom to top and finished with tape. On the Premis I recently got some pretty stiff perforated style Fizik tape and wrapped top to bottom, because I prefer the look of starting at the top and not having a finishing tape.

The main reason I hear for one approach over the other is because of tape rolling up with use, where your hand pushes against the edges of it. But, I think if you do the full cross-over-thingy behind the brakes, either top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top will lead to exposed tape edges that are curl-able. Just which wrapping you choose will determine whether it's curl-able on the tops or on the drops.

thook

just plasti-grip the whole thing

acm

I have a maxim I follow for questions like this, and it gives me a peaceful mind when they come up (as they so often do with respect to bicycle maintenance):

If the answer to a question is highly contentious, both solutions are correct

Dfrost 

This Park Tool YouTube about bar wrapping is great! Many options suggested throughout. About halfway through there’s a neat idea about switching wrap directions at the brake posts that I particularly like, because it counters the loosening effects when riding in the drops and on the tops. Also a neat idea about coloring fat tape edges at the finish. The guy understands compunction to details!


FWIW, I’ve started using this self-fusing tape instead of electrical tape for the finish at the top - no creep or gummy residue! Black is available at Home Depot, located with the glues.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Wildwood 

Here is the visual backup for bottom to top. No one disputes top to bottom with a good tuck and secure bar end cap. If you do = stick a Cork in it!

Benotto plastic bar ends, I always start at the bottom. No pic (with me) of finished job on DeRosa. Also don’t have a handy pic of the ‘botch job’ it took me to learn the lesson too late.


Grey end caps, over which will go vintage Benotto silver/grey padded ribbon tape. Bot to top.

polymorphself 

The OP's question is specific to how the padded Newbaums works, especially in comparison to their regular cloth, because some wraps will lay cleaner when wrapped bottom up. This isn't a general question about wrapping preferences with various wraps.

OP: I mentioned this already a few posts up. But I use Newbaums regularly and gave padded a try. It appears to look best when wrapped bottom up, as opposed to their regular cloth wrap that is very easy to go top down (which is my preference).

CV-6 

I just did my Bertin with Newbaum's padded. Top to bottom worked fine for me.

20210106_145138 by L Travers, on Flickr

tkamd73 

🍿 I was taught top to bottom by a mech at my local Schwinn dealer, back in the early 70s. Every bike on the floor was wrapped that way, and it was a fairly large shop.
Of course all the bikes back then were wrapped with cloth, or the plastic stuff, but have found it pretty easy to do with modern padded tapes too. If you do it right, no issues with the modern tapes, or plastic stuff.
The cloth tapes will eventually fray at the edges, but I slide my hands across the bars in both directions, so it would eventually fray anyway.
Just never liked those little extra pieces of tape at the top of the bars.
Tim

steelbikeguy

nicely done!
I was replacing the cables on one bike and figured that was a good time to do a harlequin wrap. Like your bike, it has bar end shifters, and I realized that it pretty much requires wrapping from top and bottom, and meeting in the middle at the levers.
I stopped the pattern a bit short of the levers, partly to avoid getting the tape too filthy, and because I couldn't get the Tressostar tape to behave in the bends.



Steve in Peoria

repechage

There was "discussion" way back.
I generally went top to hoods, then end to hoods, tails trapped by the hood. This was with Cinelli caps, the caps went on first, the tape on top of.
Never liked the Benotto style caps (same as Cinelli) on top.
With Mafac half hoods, top to end, stuff the tape in the end of the bar. then the plug, typically with the screw expander.
On a Carlsbad Masi, Hunt-Wilde press in plugs as original. (even though way back we switched out to Cinelli caps.)

if one terminates adjacent to the stem, the overlap has less chance of peeling over.
Way back, we changed out tape very often. One had to look "pro", like Eddy nothing like Fresh White Tape.

polymorphself 

Much better than what I accomplished!

CV-6 

One negative to wrapping Newbaum's padded top down, particularly if one is using a screw in type bar plug as I did. It won't fit. The solution I used was to remove the padding material for the last bit. I would think a cork might be easier.

Germany_chris

I’m using a screw in plug..

Thanks!

bikemig 

I was taugh bottom to top by the mechs at the shop I worked in which BITD was a top 100 independent bike dealer. They were great mechanics but they were all long haired counter cultural types as well. Perhaps that explains why they went in the opposite flow . . .

davester

This premise is wrong. The first couple of times I wrapped cloth bar tape (in the late 1960s), I did it top to bottom because the plastic tape that came on my first 10-speed was that way. That resulted in the tape rolling over above the brake handles as a result of hand friction. The LBS guys (late 60s or early 70s) pointed out this problem and told me to always wrap cloth from bottom to top to avoid this problem. There is no "modern" vs "vintage" bar wrap direction.

Oldairhead 

The direction you wrap the tape in for a top to bottom job matters a lot, though it doesn't seem to get mentioned here.

steve21108

"What are you in for?"

"Wrapped my CF bars 70s Bike Boom style, top to bottom. All would have been OK, but I was busted at the trendy coffee shop by a couple of fully accesorized roadies. Also had dorknuts and caps on both wheels."

73StellaSX76

Hey Dave, my experience mimics this. When I started riding a wrapped drop bars bike c.1975 I wrapped top down. A helpful mechanic at the lbs suggested bottom up to fix the tape edge rolling issue I was having, bottom up fixed the issue. I also never liked forcing the Velox plugs in to capture the tape ends if finishing at the bottoms, an inelegant fit.

I wrap padded tape same way, bottom up on my modern bikes. I finish the tops with color matched electrical tape, the first wind or two are stretched tight to hold, followed by a very low tension single wrap so it doesn’t have the tendency to relax and expose adhesive. I get the impression people think top down was the defacto standard back in the 70s, but not everywhere.

randyjawa 

Finally and there is only one proper way to do this! Top to bottom or bottom to top, either works just fine depending on the situation. But wrap the bars backwards will cause the tape to loosen when in use. You don't want that to happen.

due ruote 

Perhaps one of you would be so kind as to describe the proper method? I know how I do it, and my bars don't come unwrapped, so maybe I am doing it right. But now I am curious.