Specialized Bar Phat Tape (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

Specialized Bar Phat bar tape

by Shaun Audane

Thu, Apr 30, 2009 12:00

£14.67

VERDICT:

Effective comfort upgrade for your bars, it's well priced too

Weight: 60g

Contact: www.specialized.com

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Bar phat is not so much a tape as a damping system designed to reduce pressure on the hands; Specialized claim by as much as fifty percent. This makes it an obvious choice for Audax but also useful for cross and similar disciplines. Far from simply being another gel tape, the system uses four elastomer pads that fit on the top and drop sections of the bars. Tailoring the cushioning to the crucial areas provides good levels of comfort without ruining your bike’s aesthetics.

Clean and dry older bars thoroughly using a citrus-based degreaser before positioning the gel pads. Mercifully, these are re-useable and tolerant of manipulation so it’s not crucial to get their positioning right first time and they can be trimmed to accommodate pretty much any bar; they could even be shared between two if required. Once you’re satisfied with their positioning, bind the suede texture Roubaix wrap as normal.

Performance is excellent, the gel providing welcome insulation from road and trail buzz. There’s ample coverage for 46+cm drops and while you arguably get the best aesthetics with Specialized’s own tape, pairing the pads to the latest generation of polymer tape gives unparalleled comfort, albeit with a chunkier look. The Bar Phat is the best commercially available shock absorbent handlebar covering I have used and it should, coupled with a decent set of mitts, solve most vibration induced hand numbness.

Verdict

An effective and inexpensive comfort upgrade for your bars

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road.cc test report

Make and model: Specialized Bar Phat bar tape

Size tested: n/a

Tell us what the product is for, and who it’s aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

Bar Phat is a damping system consisting of self adhesive gel pads and Roubaix tape. the primary market is mile munching roadies but it will suit anyone needing additional relief from numbness.

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

Elastomer gel pieces fit to the tops and drops of the bar and there’s a choive of thinner (2.5mm) Roubaix wrap or the super thick 4.5mm version. Specialized claim 40-50% stress reduction dependant upon thickness used.

Rate the product for quality of construction:

8/10

Rate the product for performance:

8/10

Rate the product for durability:

8/10

Despite some tweaking and adjustment,all components seem durable and the Roubaix wrap is no exception.

Rate the product for weight, if applicable:

8/10

60g is a small price to pay for comfort.

Rate the product for comfort, if applicable:

9/10

Superb, in my experience, only a polymer based tape has been better.

Rate the product for value:

8/10

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

Very, very efficient, especially on prolonged rides over variable surfaces. Tape can show marks more obviously than some but is reasonably easy to clean.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

Unique, tunable system which can be used with other tapes and other bikes as required.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

Nothing.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes

Would you consider buying the product? Yes

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes

Overall rating: 8/10

About the tester

Age: 35 Height: 1m 81 Weight: 70 kilos

I usually ride: Rough Stuff Tourer Based around 4130 Univega mtb Frameset My best bike is: 1955 Holdsworth Road Path and several others including cross & traditional road

I’ve been riding for: Over 20 years I ride: Most days I would class myself as: Experienced

I regularly do the following types of riding: cyclo cross, commuting, touring, fixed/singlespeed, mtb,

Bar Phat, Bar tape, comfort, Specialized

Shaun Audane

Shaun Audane is a freelance writer/product tester with over twenty-eight years riding experience, the last twelve (120,000 miles) spent putting bikes and kit through their paces for a variety of publications. Previous generations of his family worked at manufacturing’s sharp end, thus Shaun can weld, has a sound understanding of frame building practice and a preference for steel or titanium framesets. Citing Richard Ballantine and an Au pair as his earliest cycling influences, he is presently writing a cycling book with particular focus upon women, families and disabled audiences (Having been a registered care manager and coached children at Herne Hill Velodrome in earlier careers)

1 Comments

1 thought on “Specialized Bar Phat bar tape”

Shamblesuk

December 9, 2013 at 2:44 pm

0

awesome recommendation, i
awesome recommendation, i have been suffering from numbness for months and this just basically fixed it in one go.

Comments are closed.

Latest Comments

imajez 2 hours ago

Not talking about just bikes shops, but any business that cannot afford to pay its staff a living wage, is not a viable business. Big companies whose staff have to claim benefits despite working full time are exploitative. And yet it's 'benefit scroungers' that get attacked and demonised by the press, not the extremely wealthy, tax dodging companies not paying their staff properly. Oh, like large say newspapers businesses.. Smaller businesses like your LBS, are like poor Vs rich folk, their existence costs them more than big businesses it does due to economies of scale etc, just like rich folk can afford to buy better quality suff that lasts longer or stockpile food when it's on offer whilst poor people have to scrape by.

in: “The Saturday lad or lass is under threat”: Bike shops say minimum wage increases and better sick pay prevent them taking on part-time staff

Chris RideFar 4 hours ago

The problems mentioned in this article are far more wide-ranging than simply affecting the viability of hiring Saturday lads/lasses. Fixing bikes or selling bikes now requires so much more skill and knowledge than it did 10-20 years ago, but the pay is still rubbish, partly because public perception is that the job is easy and is just a hobby. Therefore people with the ability to be good at the job are not encouraged to stick around and they look elsewhere for a career that can earn a decent wage. I don't enjoy the fact that half the bikes that I work on have almost-unique parts that requires odd techniques, tools, or parts to repair and I first have to research what I need for many of them (despite having 20 years of experience). I'm now getting so much work that I could consider hiring someone else, but it would be impossible to find a skilled person who would work for the wage I can offer and it would take far too much of my time to train someone to a level where they can do more than the simplest 10% of the jobs that come in (whereas 10-20 years ago, after a small amount of training they probably could have done 30+% of the jobs). The complexity and uniqueness of modern bikes is apparently necessary to sell them, but soon there are going to be no mechanics left who will work for the wages that people are prepared to pay. At some point, people are going to have to admit that bike mechanics and salespeople are highly skilled and knowledgeable and should be reimbursed accordingly. Or, everyone can just order bikes online and watch YouTube repair videos and end up with a bike that barely works and isn't safe; but that's fine because they're just simple kids' toys, right?

in: “The Saturday lad or lass is under threat”: Bike shops say minimum wage increases and better sick pay prevent them taking on part-time staff

mattw 7 hours ago

I think the author is trying too hard to "both sides" this one. The basic error is Gove's - he was wandering across a pedestrian crossing on red for him with his head in a cup of coffee, and started well after it was on red. The Highway Code says "should not cross" in these circumstances. He then tried to excuse this by red herrings. Conservatives, including Gove, are supposed to have taking personal responsibility for their actions as a core value. Perhaps having the crooked coward Boris Johnson and Fruit Loop Liz as elected leaders demonstrates that this is merely historical. Gove is permitting a culture war being fought in the pages of his magazine; that is a war where Conservatives are demonising cycling because they hope it will save the rump Conservative Party. One example was their sudden reversal of support for the Welsh 20mph default limit. Should noodles have reacted less sharply - perhaps. A chat with Michael Gove to stop him wandering around the streets like a lobotomised koala may have been beneficial.

in: Michael Gove vs the disgruntled camera cyclist: Sometimes optics matter more than being in the right

Rendel Harris 9 hours ago

@mdavidford Funny, as soon as I saw your comment on the ticker on another article I knew to whom you must be replying.

in: “Only makes sense on paths you DON’T want cyclists to use”: “Totally indefensible” slalom barriers on cycle lane; Lance Armstrong’s DS tells UCI boss to “stick to selfies & dubious deals”; “Canyon to Brompton” delivery nightmare + more on the live blog

Backladder 9 hours ago

@mctrials23 People have been suffering for years because they have been unlucky enough to have been hired by bad people, or had the bad luck to become ill. This is just bringing the system more into balance. I don't have a problem with encouraging people to start businesses but I don't agree with doing it by letting them exploit the poor and the desperate, if they need encouragement then offer state benefits for small businesses and use the claims process to make sure that they are doing everything they should to run the business properly including paying and training their employees. If they just want to get rich quick by exploiting others then they should be in the USA.

in: “The Saturday lad or lass is under threat”: Bike shops say minimum wage increases and better sick pay prevent them taking on part-time staff

mdavidford 9 hours ago

One may wonder why you've brought up DEI when it has nothing at all to do with anything in what Lappartient said. Or why you care about the state of the women's sport if you're so down on diversity, equity and inclusion. 🤷‍♂️

Rendel Harris 10 hours ago

Not quite the first time, I rode over it back in the late twentyteens, just happened to see it was jammed nose-to-tail so thought it would be fun to filter along...turned out there was an overturned lorry at the eastern end blocking all carriageways. I honestly didn't know cycling was banned (the signs aren't very prominent), just assumed nobody rode on it because it would be suicidal in normal circumstances. Fortunately the weary copper at the other end who saw me just cut off my apologies and said, "Fuck off over there [a gap in the barrier to a slip road] and don't do it again."

in: Hundreds of cyclists ignore road closure to “mass trespass” on notorious Westway and tell government to “stop spending money on car roads”

Backladder 10 hours ago

They're not slalom barriers, they're Sheffield stands for parking your bike.

mctrials23 10 hours ago

@momove I would think that spending time training someone up, putting the time and effort into that only to have most people move on relatively quickly isn't a great business model. I know there is the argument that "if your business has to take advantage of people to run then its not a viable business" but thats the reality of some of these shops. Up to a point, thats exactly what apprenticeships have always been. A business get cheap labour that might help them a bit and the apprentice learns something.

in: “The Saturday lad or lass is under threat”: Bike shops say minimum wage increases and better sick pay prevent them taking on part-time staff

MaxiMinimalist 10 hours ago

One may wonder why bureaucrat Lappartient wants to reinvent the wheel with a massive injection of DEI and drastic reduction of money. Let the best cyclists win, period. Meanwhile, women's pro peloton needs means and support to attract new sponsors, increase TV coverage, improve salaries and prize money.