Has anyone used the Cinelli cork tape and what is your experience with it? Do you have to shellac it? And if you do shellac it, is that a big problem? I haven’t ridden shellac more than once or twice and I think it’s pretty awesome on a commuter, but not sure how I’d feel about it on a tri bike.
For comparison, I am a big fan of s-works tape from Specialized.
Not sure what you mean by shellac?
There are all kinds of choices for bar tape. The problem with many of them though, is unless you go with black, they get dirty fast. White in particular. The tape that I prefer is the Fizik Microtex tape in the matt or glossy finish - you can go white here and it will last a whole season without showing any dirt. Cleans very easy and looks great all year long - or longer.
Blog post from earlier this year on the importance of Handle Bar tape:
http://stevefleck.blogspot.com/2011/04/handlebar-tape-more-important-than-you.html
Cinelli cork tape is probably still the gold standard in tape…but a lot of new brands are chopping away at them. The Fizik tape is fantastic, especially the microsuede black tape.
Cinelli cork tape has a good bit of stretch in it and as such you can get a very tight and neat wrap, and its not too thick. Personally I have Fizzik on at the moment but it needs redoing, just too lazy, as the tape has started to split, have two boxes of cinelli cork waiting to do the job, gone back to tried and trusted product.
Great to hear, thanks fellas!