Each of us remembers how they became a Velominatus. For me, it was at Grimpeur Wielersport, in Zevenaar, The Netherlands. Its the perfect place: a small shop, on a small street, in a small town, in a small country, run by a Giant of the Sport, Herman van Meegen. I haven’t been back in years, not since my mentor and original owner was forced to retire due to a nagging back injury.
Despite it’s diminutive appearance, inside this small shop existed a world vast beyond my wildest imagination. The owner spoke with the soft ‘G’ – typical of the Dutch dialect in the region. Former head mechanic at Helvetia – La Suisse, and later for Team 7-Eleven, he had previously wielded a wrench at the world’s major events including Le Tour before opening this shop. He knew everyone. Pros strolled into his shop on a regular basis. Imagine the awe of a thirteen-year-old Velominatus Novus as Erik Breukink wandered into the shop and dallied about for a bit.
But it was the tales and experience from many years on the Pro circuit that made those visits to special to me. He explained in detail the way Steve Bauer preferred to ride a smaller frame than his contemporaries or how Pascal Richard liked the tension of the spokes “just so” as he laced a set of wheels for my dad. He showed me how he filed out the holes in the hub flange to cradle the spokes better and reduce the chance of breaking one. He built wheels on a truing stand he built himself and to which he affixed a micrometer. He told me that a perfectly true wheel will never go out of true, not even on the cobbles. “Maar het moet werkelijk perfect zijn.” But it has to be absolutely perfect. Sounds like something you need a custom truing stand and micrometer for. (That bike is now something like 20 years old, and has never seen a spoke wrench; the wheels are still perfectly true.)
He was personal friends with Eddy Merckx and picked up a frame my dad had ordered after dinner with The Man at the factory in Belgium. A prototype Campagnolo saddle with titanium rails and air bladder that never made it to production somehow found its way atop my dad’s seat post. I can’t imagine how his insides churned as my dad insisted on having a set of Scott Drop-Ins installed on that bike. He never uttered a word about it, opting instead to teach me how to seamlessly splice two rolls of bar tape together to accommodate the long bars – a skill he picked up wrapping the bars of riders who wanted double-wrapped bars on the tops but not the drops at Paris-Roubaix. He taught me to cut my cables short and solder them before cutting for the perfect, sleek finishing touch. He taught me how to “feel” a bolt to get it just the right amount of tight – where it holds but the soft aluminum doesn’t strip. He taught me to trim soda cans and tuck them in between the bars and stem of a handlebar that persistently slips. But most importantly, he showed me the intricate beauty of our machines.
He also stocked a backpack called the “Body Bag” which I always felt could have used a more sensible name and whose marketers perhaps missed a nuance in the language.
Apart from his poor choice in backpacks, this was a man who understood the finer things about bicycles, and I’m grateful he took the time to teach me even a tiny little bit of what he knew.
So, I leave you today with this question: if you could ask a pro bike mechanic – perhaps even one on the ProTour circuit – one, single question, what would it be?
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The tape should be wrapped in the direction that you would twist the throttle to accelerate. I.e the bottom right of the bar should be CCW, the bottom left should be CW. That way you are always "tightening" the tape as you grip the bars. And as @mouse says - "No figure 8ing".
@frank
Bar tape on the mtb Frank? Dare I ask what byjesus are you calling a mtb? All two of em! I don't recall my mid 80's Gary Fisher Hookooekoo rolling bartape.
At least you have a proper set of downhill skis.
@frank
It's not a big deal, and I think it's one of those "rules" that is interpreted differently by different mechanics - Mapei used to have a mechanic who taped the entire 'bars in the same direction from right to left and it didn't seem to stop Museeuw from winning the occasional race!
@frank
BTW, even if you wrap it the correct way (i.e. my way) they wrap towards each other wtf.
@Oli
Hey @Oli, I'm curious to see what the alternative taping arrangement that you refer to looks like. From what I can see, Frank has it right, and it's primarily down to that where the bends happen, the tape is laid over from top to bottom so that the force of your hands over the first curve from the horizontal to where the levers attach(if you were to slide them down the bars moving from the stem outward and downward) push the trailing edge of the tape on top into the one beneath - sort of like smoothing it out.
If I'm visualising the alternative properly, it would suggest that the force of your hands moving in the same direction descibed before would catch the leading edge of the tape on top, and roll it backward.
Got any pictures to describe what you mean?
We might be all in furious agreement, just seeing it differently.
@mouse
The "alternative" still means the tape overlaps in the way you mean (I think?) when done "correctly". The potential issue I gather you're talking about would be what happens when you start at the top, and that just ain't right no how, no way.
@Oli
Just got off a plane in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Now, that's worth a WTF. But, to your point, what I mean is that the leading edge (specifically, the tape along the front edge of the bars) has to - absolutely has to - point at the leading edge of the other bars. And they have to be at exactly the same angle on both sides of the bars. And they have to have exactly the same amount of spread between wraps. And the finishing tape has to be Stracked the way it is in my photo, though the color of the under layer can be whatever you decide works best.
That style harkens back to the 7-Eleven days, and I saw a mechanic at Slipstream do it the way I'm doing it these days (which is where I copied the trick from, I have no original ideas).
The wrap on your bars at the bottom shot, while impecable in every way, makes my skin crawl because the wraps point away from each other on the leading edge. Seriously. It makes me physically uncomfortable looking at it. I'm not well.
I have to say, though, aside from the wrong direction bit, that you've done a great job, even with that spongy Deda wrap, which I can't stand. Most people wrap it too tight and it gets lumpy, even Pros, which I suppose you are. Nice work.
@mouse, @Oli
Like the Hammie Quad Debate of WheneverTheFuck (sorry I can't be more precise with the timing), I think it really depends on style. I think tape without backing will come loose period, because the tape's coefficient of friction is not in alignment with the twisting of your grip no matter how you wrap it. You're either loosening the front or the back, and it just comes down to which of those sides is more important relevant to the taping direction and the direction you spaz your hands, and whether you change the tape before you notice it's loose.
That said, depending on if you twist more with the inside of your hands or the outside, I think your taping should go the oposite direction. In the drops, that's probably the same for everyone with any class, because we all angle our wrists inwards because that's what looks cool. On the tops, climbing, we're all more likely to be showing our poor form and twisting whatever our body naturally twists in. Which, for me, is random and at the mercy of whatever will make the pain less.
I learned to tape bars in the era of Benotto Cello-Tape - take it from me, if you wound it the wrong way it would unwind. Lennard Zinn does it your way, so even though you are wrong at least you're in good company.
As I have said, these days it really doesn't matter - as long as it's done well it will be fine.