Each month, our friends at Hawley share a review on the latest gear that is passing through their warehouse on its way to your local bike shop.
As always, thanks to Ken Klatte, Production Artist with Hawley, for
this sneak-preview and words of wisdom. For more from Hawley on the
latest and greatest in bike gear, check out their blog or YouTube channel.
The start of August signals two things: the brutal Deep
South Summer has kicked into high gear and those looking towards the Fall and
the requisite cyclocross racing that accompanies it have started prepping their
bikes for a few months of harrowing race action. Looking for a change from the
usual cork handlebar tape I’ve been using for years, I was given a roll of
Lizard Skin DSP handlebar tape in the fashion forward color of black. If you’ve
been riding for a while, you recognize Lizard Skin as a mountain and BMX
company. Their road pedigree is a mystery and left me uneasy to trust my hands
to the unknown. With a shrug of the shoulders, I thought, “What’s the worst
that can happen?” and proceeded to tear open a package of 2.5 mm DSP tape.
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| Lizard Skin DSP Tape |
First of all, the surface of the tape is extremely comfortable. It’s very soft
and supple but embossed a with a grid pattern that reinforces its “grippiness”. An 82-inch roll length meant I had plenty of
tape to do a complete wrap with a few inches to spare. Once installed, it was
time to put the DSP through its paces. The first few hundred miles were done on
long but fairly strenuous road rides without gloves. My hands finished each
ride pain-free and my copious amount of sweat did little to diminish the tape’s
grip. With July came thunderstorms and that led to several wet rides on the
dirt roads of Lexington County. Once again, the DSP held up perfectly even when
slathered in sand and rain. To put it simply, Lizard Skin’s DSP handlebar tape
is the perfect mixture of comfort and ruggedness. Ridden with gloves or
without, your hands will feel glued to the handlebar at any speed and in any
conditions. DSP comes in either a 1.8 mm or 2.5 mm thickness (60 grams a roll)
and has an MSRP of $34.99 for two rolls.
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