A bit annoyed with how my LBS wrapped my wife’s bars…
 

She doesn’t seem to care, but this feels sloppy. They didn’t even use a piece of the original tape to cover the shifter clamps. They used plain ole black cork.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4a12dfff5.jpeg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...7f501b802.jpeg

Sometimes, you just have to do it yourself.

My wife wraps my bars, except when my LBS wraps my bars.

Park Tools has an excellent video detailing how to wrap bars. Even I could follow it, and my results look pretty good, almost like I knew what I was doing.

Nothing beats doing it yourself if you want attention to detail.

That's a minor result as far as shop fiascos go.

Just redo it, I used that tape before and it will still stick just fine for a couple rewraps.

Did the tape either: A) not have enough length leftover to cut a piece off for the purpose of covering the clamps; or B) not actually supply the extra pieces for this purpose (some brands do not include these unfortunately)?

I'd be annoyed too. But like you, only a bit. And if your wife likes it, let sleeping dogs lie and just go for a ride with her.

They should 100% redo that for you. I can't believe a "pro" would wrap bars like that.

Supercaz is hard to wrap as it does not stretch like some tapes do so you can get this bulging or lipping if you don't get it right as you come into the hoods. This was probably the best way to eliminate this. I will admit my taping skills lack on occasion, but I tend to use tape that has some stretch which gives me some relief around the hoods.

It's not completely horrible, but it could have been better.

What's wrong with the wrap? :foo:

If you wanna be super picky, you gotta do it yourself. Shops are apparently charging $20 labor to wrap bars, and I know no shop would want to pay me even min wage to spend an hour wrapping bars as anally retentive as I do.

This inspired me to throw new tape on just now.

Nobel prize worthy?

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...15e4861c1c.jpg

Done right, you don't need the strip to fill in, everything is just covered by the way its wrapped and the hoods. Personally although I wouldn't have considered the job good enough for my results, I probably wouldn't have noticed is someone else did it and I wouldn't care enough to make any form of stink about it unless the wife really disliked it. Since she doesn't care I wouldn't waste the energy to get worked up over it, it'll get changed sooner or later. I've also found supercaz tape to be harder to use, wouldn't be surprised if a newer tech struggled with using it, was as hard to stretch and lay down as old cork, just a lot less fragile, and hard to get perfect without a lot of experience.

Hmmm. The last time I had the Velofix mechanic over to work on my bikes, he saw my new box of tape in the garage and asked if he could re-wrap my bars for me just because he loved doing it. I was going to do it myself, but I figured he could save me some time and aggravation. He did it for free and much better than I would have. I wrapped my gravel bars soon after. It came out pretty well -- but not as perfect as the Velofix guy.

I agree. If done "right" . My Domane's original wrap job [assuming done during production not at retailer] contained some very subtle looseness in one of the wrappings on one side.
Pulled it off & found no strip at the brifter clamp. Both sides were like that.
I wrapped the initial problem side nice & tight. I'll need to redo the other side over again. Should have bought two packages.

If I posted a pic of my bars, 911 would blow up.

The man is a masochist. :twitchy:

well, they did use good tape anyway. I like that brand.

Supacaz doesn't include the usual "strip" of tape used to cover the shifter clamp. I too keep spare pieces of varied tape for such needs but usually cut a short strip off my Supacaz to cover the clamp.
I do notice there is quite a bit of overlap of the tape. I usually go for the mid point or just a bit over depending on the size of the bars.
I find no real fault though I prefer to cut a short strip off rather than use a different tape.
Best to learn how to do it yourself but then you open yourself to complaint and mockery if you don't do it to everyone's expectations if you show the results.

I wouldn't worry about that it is the nature of the Supercaz tape so they did something to make it work. It is barely noticeable and not noticeable when your hand is there or while riding.

Unfortunate that bar tape which costs $25-50 depending on model and retailer cant manage to include a couple of 2" strips of tape to use under the shifters.

I've walked through bike shops and seen many bars wrapped in a sloppy manner. Not just imperfect, but really amateur looking. It tells me everything I need to know about whoever assembled the bike. Because if they're not spending the time and attention to detail to get this right, where else are they cutting corners?

I hate imperfections in bar wrap; it's one of my pet peeves. I spend way too much time working to get it perfect when I do this job myself. I have a compelling need--almost an obsession--to get it as perfect as possible.

ikr
I'm looking for some bar tape online... kinda expensive still.

At least it doesn't look like this... https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...2c28e2d18b.jpg

I think that mechanic used to work as a cook at one of our local restaurants, where peas were piled randomly on the plate and French fries were never aligned with each other. It really annoyed me.

Thanks for the inputs! I'll likely just leave it as is. I just learned something new about this shop. The shop that services my bike would never have wrapped this way, but it's about high time I give it a go.

My wife's bike also has some secondary brake levers on the bars just to the left and right of the stem. I had asked them to remove these when they were re-cabling the bike. They put this information in the work order notes, but then when I picked up the bike they didn't do it. My combined ire of them wrapping the bars this way and then not executing on the details of the work order brought me on here to vent.