red dirt cowboy
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The “Tressostar Trick”:
The problem: after 2 years and 10K miles, my GripBuddies Super Sharkskins are on the verge of falling apart. (see pic)
The GripBuddies are advertised as “durable”… I guess people’s definitions of durable differ. On a garage queen that’s never seen a drop of rain I’d expect a little more life than that out of a product described in those terms, but maybe that's just me... though I notice from a few posts around here that while most are happy with the GripBuddies’s initially, for many that feeling quickly wears off (literally! haw haw!)
The solution: I borrowed from my experience on the other kind of two wheel conveyance that I also ride, namely thevintage steel bicycle. I wrapped the GripBuddies with Tressostar, a high quality cloth tape that you can buy in almost any color on ebay for $5 a roll (sold per roll: one roll is enough, but you have to be judicious – if you want a tighter look than I have use two) . Then, taking a trick from the seventies bicycle playbook I coated the wrap with one coat of amber shellac (available at any hardware store). Only use amber if you want to darken your color slightly (I did as the red Tressostar is like the bright Honda red, not my burgundyish red). The result is still pliable and shock absorbent, as well as grippy, but basically bulletproof – the shellac acts like a waterproof coat as well as glue, so I doubt this will fray or unravel at all any time soon. It remains pliable and does not flake. I only did one coat, though some recommend two or more. I used a small foam brush to apply it (protect your bike from drips when you do this!) Now we have “durable”, as well as custom looking and almost matching my paint.
So if you don’t want to buy new GripBuddies (or whatever) every season, make their best features almost permanent with this little trick. This would probably work over open cell foam too, which otherwise absorbs water. Black tressostar would work great – but in that case I might just use clear shellac though. And if you google it, there is one color that with the amber shellac ends up looking exactly like aged brown leather (the Brooks bicycle seat crowd loves that one).
I will report how this holds up over the next year, especially on the long tour I’m planning in summer.
Murphy for you.