grips

Gropes are an unusual alternative to both flat bar grips and drop bar tape. The lace-up leather is certainly eyecatching, and chances are that'll be the reason you buy them. If high-performance is your primary concern, you should probably look elsewhere.

Crank Brothers Cobalt are a thin density lock-on design grips making the transition perfectly from XC trail blazer to road whippet, tourer to tagalong thanks to high quality materials uniting shock absorption and tenacious all weather grip without the chunky profiles. Death gripping the bars when screaming into winding descents wouldn't budge them but some smoother anodised/plated finishes proved trickier and the clamp bolts seemed unduly fragile

Ergon GP1 Biokork grips

Intended primarily for an MTB audience, these Charger grips well prove interesting to the latest generation of road fixers coming from a BMX background and they make worthy upgrades for other flat-bar road mounts. The grips themselves are soft polymer with rows of tactile ribbing and subtle logos mounted atop black anodised sleeves with laser-etched graphics.