Spruce up your bar and give your hands a treat
The best handlebar tape can keep you comfortable and in control when cycling.
Shock absorption and cushioning are often the main priorities when considering what bar tape to buy because these will have the biggest impact on keeping your hands comfortable. Material choice can also affect grip when riding in the wet – and durability too.
Beyond comfort and control, swapping out old bar tape for new is an affordable way to customise a bike or give it a new lease of life. In fact, as far as cheap road bike upgrades go, a roll of new tape is one of the easiest ways to freshen up your ride.
You can read more about what makes the best bar tape, and how to wrap it, by jumping to our buyer’s guide.
Best handlebar tape 2024
PRO Sport Comfort
- £18 / $24 / AU$33 as tested
- Thickness: 3.5mm
- Plug type: Press-in
PRO’s Sport Comfort is thick at 3.5mm, thanks to its extra layer of gel padding.
The wide, non-sticky silicone adhesive strip sticks to the bar effectively and is very easy to remove without residue. The non-patterned design delivered excellent grip.
It’s a veritable bargain if you like a little more road-buzz-smoothing plushness from your handlebar tape.
Silca Nastro Pilotti
- £42 / $50 / €45 as tested
- Pros: Comfort; thin; alloy expander bungs; excellent grip
- Cons: Road-specific tape
Silca’s Nastro Pilotti tape is expensive, but supremely comfortable and well-suited to smaller hands.
For foam-cored bar tape, Silca’s Nastro Pilotti is remarkably thin at just 1.85mm. The Silcathane material is claimed to be derived from motorsport applications and it feels rather different from standard EVA tapes.
The rolls have an adhesive strip that’s well bonded to the tape and doesn’t separate or tear even from resetting and repositioning the tape when wrapping.
The tape comes with high-quality machined aluminium expander bungs (14g each) rather than plastic plugs. It adds a layer of quality that’s reflected in the high price.
The tape is almost tacky to the touch and provides superb grip without any patterning. The texture is akin to fine-grain leather and even though the tape is thin, it’s as cushioning and comfortable as thicker options.
Fabric Knurl
- £22 / $30 / AU$35 / €25 as tested
- Thickness: 2mm
- Plug type: Expanding wedge
While not the thickest, the Knurl tape uses a silicone strip rather than adhesive to hold position, which has the added benefit of providing extra damping.
Combined with some quality foam backing and a Kraton rubber outer, the thickness belies a very comfortable tape.
There doesn’t seem to be any variance in grip, no matter what the conditions are or whether you’re wearing gloves. Fitting is straightforward because the tape is reasonably stretchy and the silicone allows easy repositioning.
Brooks Cambium
- £30 / $40 / €35 as tested
- Thickness: 3mm
- Plug type: Press in
Better known for its high-quality saddles, Brooks dips its toe into the world of bar tape with this product made from organic rubber.
The Cambium is a thick tape, which makes it a little less compliant than some of the others when wrapping, but it has an agreeable amount of stretch to compensate.
Part of the thickness is a second-density foam on the inside offering huge amounts of comfort. We found good amounts of hold in almost all conditions, but gloves without grip on the palms did slip a little in the wet.
Deda Loop
- £39.99 / $44.99 / €34.50 as tested
- Pros: Great quality; carbon-safe alloy end plugs
- Cons: Minimal vibration damping
The Deda Loop is a low-volume, grippy tape with a quality finish and quality bar-end plugs.
The tape is nominally 30mm wide and 2.5mm at its thickest, though the edges are feathery thin. A broad adhesive strip through the centre handles moving and reapplication well, and keeps the tape stable and secure once you’ve finished wrapping.
The tape has bags of stretch, making it very easy to get the wrap right first time. The laser-etched alloy and rubber bar-end bungs are a quality touch.
The textured patterning gives the Loop tape an almost fabric-like feel, and the grip is excellent in both wet and dry conditions. Vibration cushioning is minimal.
At 97.2g, including the top-quality alloy bar-end plugs, the Loop tape is yet another light option if you’re looking for grippy, comfortable tape that won’t drastically increase the diameter of your bar.
MicroTex Tacky Bar Tape
- £30 as tested
- Thickness: 2mm
- Plug type: Press in
At first glance, shiny tape doesn’t scream grip, however, a gloved (or even slightly sweaty) hand reveals a surprising amount of traction. It offers a sticky sensation, but doesn’t leave a residue.
Although it doesn’t stretch, the edges are slightly elastic so wrapping around shifters is straightforward. The adhesive is quite aggressive and requires a healthy dose of care to reposition.
Prologo Esatouch
- £31.99 / $45.99 / €37 as tested
- Pros: Light; hard-wearing; wet-weather grip
- Cons: Minimal cushioning makes it best for road use
The Prologo Esatouch bar tape offers a high-quality grip, ample comfort, and minimal size and weight.
The medium-density EVA foam base has a 0.75mm-thick polyurethane surface with a hexagonal patterned grip. The adhesive backing can be repositioned without lifting or tearing the foam base and the even stretch makes it a great tape to get a close, even fit when wrapping.
At 68.6g, it’s a light package, but it doesn’t skimp on comfort or grip. It takes care of buzzy road vibrations well, but doesn’t offer the impact dulling of thicker, more off-road biased tapes.
In the wet, the surface gets tacky rather than greasy and the hex pattern adds to its all-weather performance.
Selle San Marco Presa Corsa Dynamic
- £18 as tested
- Plug type: Press in
Well-priced, high-quality padded gel tape that weighs just 70g overall, including plugs.
The San Marco’s wide adhesive strip and overall profile are very similar to the PRO’s, with just a little less central gel padding. But this is comfortable, good looking and easy to fit neatly, and remove without fuss or mess.
Specialized S-Wrap HD
- £32 / $35 / AU$45 as tested
- Plug type: Press in
Excellent quality, grippy and comfortable gel-padded tape with a matching finishing strip, all well-secured by expanding plug bar ends for a super-neat look.
The wide-ish adhesive strip doesn’t feel sticky to the touch, but is effective, and was easy to clean and remove.
The two-colour design takes a little care to get neat on the bend but that’s the only downside.
Supacaz Super Sticky Kush
- £36.99 / $45 / €45 as tested
- Pros: All-weather grip; long; classy end plugs; lots of options
- Cons: Not cheap
Supacaz’s sticky Kush is a top road bar tape that majors on grip in all weather.
It’s a dual-compound tape with a PU outer layer and an EVA foam core that maxes out at 2.5mm in its tapered shape.
The foam base extends to the edges of the PU outer skin, which helps keep the integrity of the edges. This test tape proved to be much hardier than previous versions.
The foam core does an excellent job of keeping buzz minimal and the textured patterned outer is – like its name – sticky to the touch.
The laser-etched pattern on the material adds even more grip, even when riding in heavy rain.
The lack of stretch may be a hindrance when wrapping, but it creates a very stable grip when riding.
Supacaz offers a myriad of colour and pattern options, and at over two metres of tape per pack, there’s plenty for even the widest of bars.
Wolf Tooth Supple 5mm
- £45 / $39.95 / €36.99
- Pros: Huge comfort; thick; no adhesive
- Cons: Needs careful fitting
The Wolf Tooth Supple 5mm bar tape is an ideal choice for gravel bikes.
At 40mm wide and with 5mm depth to its 1.5cm centre strip, flanked on each side by long tapers, this tape is super-sized.
It wraps without an adhesive strip, instead relying on the naturally tacky texture of the material to grip the bar and against itself.
Though it will add 10mm to the diameter of your bar, its vibration reduction is unmatched by anything I’ve tried. It’s a tape ideally suited to bigger hands.
At 191.4g a set, it’s not exactly light, but then you won’t find this sort of comfort from anything lighter.
Buyer’s guide to handlebar tape
What is bar tape made from?
Bar tape was traditionally made from cork or leather. Cork offers good absorption and remains grippy in wet weather while leather bar tape provides great comfort and has a classic appearance.
These materials are still used, but today, the best bar tape is more frequently made from synthetic materials such as polyurethane, silicone and rubberised polymers.
Man-made materials provide several benefits because they are lightweight and durable and can be particularly grippy with ‘sticky’ surfaces and imprinted grips.
Thick or thin bar tape
Often, synthetic materials are used as an outer and paired with a gel or foam inner. This can drastically alter the feel of a bike with non-backed tapes being as thin as 1.5mm and backed tapes being as thick as 5mm.
Thickness and backing of bar tape often come down to personal preference. Maybe you are riding on gravel and want as much vibration to be absorbed as possible, or you ride with cycling gloves so prefer a thinner bar tape.
In some cases, bar tape comes backed with adhesive strips. This can make wrapping or removing bar tape a tricky affair, but it does hold the tape in place.
Change your bike’s style
New bar tape will give your bike a new lease of life, but it’s also a way to change your bike’s style.
Cork or leather tape will give any build a retro flavour, while thicker tape might look out of place on a classy steel bike.
Bar tape also comes in a range of colours and patterns and can give any build a personal touch, but one thing many cyclists will insist on is bar tape matching the colour of the bike’s saddle. Of course, colour choice is personal preference.
How to wrap bar tape
When it comes to wrapping, some synthetic bar tapes are high-stretch, making it easier to wrap the tape around brake levers and hoods.
The length of bar tape can also impact wrapping. If you are wrapping a wide bar, say on a gravel bike, then you will have less material to play with.
For more advice, check out our guide on how to wrap handlebar tape.