School me on electrical tape...

Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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I have some crappy electrical tape. I am not an electrician. This stuff is goo, it's sticky, it unravels after a few days, it's...

I know, shrink wrap. I have that. Electrical is not the application. The last time the Bike Dude wrapped my drop bars with bike drop bar wrap, he used some kind of electrical tape thing that WORKED REALLY WELL and has endured a couple years of heat and hard use and it is as good as new. Not sticky at the sides, not unraveling...

What is it? I want some.
 
it's electrical.......it's tape............for some, it's a yoke wrap! (bleck)
 
Best normal electrical tape I've used is 3M 88, in 1.5" width. Think you can get it on amazon. It's like 33, but a little bit heavier. 33 is also good.

But agree with everybody above, I think you're looking for self fusing splice tape. Electrical tape is thin and self adhesive. Self-fusing tape is much thicker, has no adhesive, and just sticks to itself.
 
For underwrap on bike handlebars use 3M 88 as others have said. Do not use self fusing. I assume you want to secure brake and shift cables to road drop bars and the wrap with regular bar tape over that?
 
Hang 4 said:
For underwrap on bike handlebars use 3M 88 as others have said. Do not use self fusing. I assume you want to secure brake and shift cables to road drop bars and the wrap with regular bar tape over that?
Click to expand...

Yes. I'll get some of that then.
 
Oh, and don't use the wider width that @Albany Tom mentioned. You want a narrower tape to get around the curved areas nice and tight. 3/4" is the standard width.
 
Hang 4 said:
Oh, and don't use the wider width that @Albany Tom mentioned. You want a narrower tape to get around the curved areas nice and tight. 3/4" is the standard width.
Click to expand...

Well it is on order, plus some new bar wrap. I may just wrap the new electrical tape over the old crap for now and ride for a while, and then redo both sides when the left side gives out. It's still in good shape, probably because I do a lot of shifting and movement with my right hand.

And there is the other problem. Getting proper brake/shift covers for my SRAM Axis groupset. My LBS ordered a pair a couple years ago but they never fit right. I ordered the same thing on Amazon thinking that they were correct but they were the same and didn't last and were not the OEM part. I can't find the OEM SRAM covers anywhere. So, I'm riding a Frankenbike.
 
For clarification, the electrical tape was used to secure the beginning of the wrap. The end is secured by the drop bar ends where a plug goes in and you put the last remaining wrap inside the drop bar tube. I was using electrical tape to secure severed portions of drop bar wrap.
 
I use electrical tape from the brake handles to where the cables need to go to the brakes and shifter tunnels. Getting those cables tight makes the bar tape way easier to wrap. I wrap bar tape starting at the "plug end" by just folding it into the hollow end and stuffing the plug to hold it in. Go up from there, figure 8 around the brake handles and then cut a taper on the end of the bar tape to have an even end. That also gets wrapped with the same electrical tape. If you want to get real anal, the bar tape should be in mirror image directions on each side, and the figure 8 around the brake handles eliminates the need for the small 3 or 4 inch piece of loose bar tape that comes in the package. So basically, I'm wrapping in the opposite direction that you are.
 
Here's what I was talking about
 
All this tape talk reminds me how a friend calls Duct Tape "The Force"

It has a Light Side.

It has a Dark Side.

It holds the universe together.​
 
The 1.5" width was the standard size for tape in mining use, very rough service. It allows a good overlap on a wrap even at an angle and stretched a bit for better grip. As the story goes, it is good enough to use as an emergency repair for a burst truck radiator hose. .75" is standard, but when you angle, overlap, and stretch is has maybe .5" or less of overlap, which doesn't hold up quite as well. Still good tape, though.
 
Albany Tom said:
Best normal electrical tape I've used is 3M 88, in 1.5" width. Think you can get it on amazon. It's like 33, but a little bit heavier. 33 is also good.

But agree with everybody above, I think you're looking for self fusing splice tape. Electrical tape is thin and self adhesive. Self-fusing tape is much thicker, has no adhesive, and just sticks to itself.
Click to expand...

Hang 4 said:
For underwrap on bike handlebars use 3M 88 as others have said. Do not use self fusing. I assume you want to secure brake and shift cables to road drop bars and the wrap with regular bar tape over that?
Click to expand...

Admittedly, I am not familiar with fusing splice tape but I did Google it. Why wouldn't it be recommended? It sounds like an interesting, not tacky solution.

Regardless I did strip the crap tape off my bars and re-wrapped the ends of the bar wraps for a temporary fix (in grip areas) with the 3M tape. It's definitely better than the crap I used before, but the crap I used before was over 20 years old. Although, 20 years ago, it was still crap.

Anyway, Iiked it well enough so that I am going to stick to my plan of doing a temporary repair to my bar tape until one side or the other finally gives out. Then I will do my bar wrap job. I watched the video. Informative.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Admittedly, I am not familiar with fusing splice tape but I did Google it. Why wouldn't it be recommended? It sounds like an interesting, not tacky solution.
Click to expand...
It's a bit of a challenge when you need to get it off. Regular electrical tape can just be unwound, no need for a knife or razor that could scratch through the anodizing on the bar. Or if you want to do what you are doing, just fix the ends of the bar tape for a bit, imagine trying to get that off of the actual bar tape without destroying it.
 
Hang 4 said:
It's a bit of a challenge when you need to get it off. Regular electrical tape can just be unwound, no need for a knife or razor that could scratch through the anodizing on the bar. Or if you want to do what you are doing, just fix the ends of the bar tape for a bit, imagine trying to get that off of the actual bar tape without destroying it.
Click to expand...

No biggie. Bar tape is gone anyway.
 
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