Ergon Handlebar Tape and Orthocell Foam Padding

Hand comfort is one of the most important factors I pay attention to on a bike. I've already damaged my nerves in a few races and didn't want to make things worse. For road ultra events, I was a bit worried — no front suspension, and without low tyre pressures it wouldn't be ideal. Race through Poland meant 1,700 kilometres of mixed terrain, so I decided to swap my stock handlebar tape for Ergon, including special foam padding.

I wanted to try Ergon because I've had very good experiences with their grips on my mountain bike, and I trust their handlebar tape is well thought out. Alongside many colour options, you can choose from three core variants:

• Road – 2 mm thick
• AllRoad – 2.5 mm
• Gravel – 3.5 mm + 20 centimetres longer

For my use, I went with AllRoad. I wasn't planning to ride brutal gravel at high speed on this bike, so the thickest option felt like overkill. But the comfort story doesn't end there — as a bonus, I wanted to add foam padding underneath to make the ride even more pleasant.

🛌 Orthocell Foam Padding

That brings me to the first thing I stuck onto my handlebars — a set of special orthopaedic foam inserts. Technically I couldn't tell you exactly what the material is, but it's an extra layer that helps dampen vibrations. Ergon even makes a special version of their tape using this material. The foam is 2.5 mm thick, the same as my AllRoad tape. In other words, on the key contact areas I effectively had two layers of tape, totalling 5 mm of damping.

One section goes on the top grip position and the other on the drops. The top piece can be trimmed if needed. The back is coated with adhesive, so the padding stays in place on the bars and doesn't shift. Of course, you still need to wrap tape over it — the adhesive alone wouldn't hold.

It feels like a neat improvement you can use with any handlebar tape to boost comfort without making the bars overly bulky. At first glance you can't even tell there's anything underneath. And on the grip, you can definitely feel the extra damping.

🚴 Ergon Tape

Coming back to the tape itself, the first thing that caught my attention was that you can choose between two grip textures. Depending on which end you start wrapping from, one of two surface structures is exposed. Personally I went for the higher-grip option — I can't really see why I'd want my hand to slide more. In any case, during the race I rode bare-handed several times and had zero grip issues.

For even wrapping, the tape is divided into thirds, although in practice it didn't help me all that much — I couldn't stick to it. I'm still a beginner at bar-wrapping, but I definitely managed better than last time. The tape stretched fairly easily.

The tape sticks to the bars with adhesive. On one side I ended up rewrapping, so I had to peel it back carefully, but it came off fine. Repeated re-wrapping could be more of an issue, though.

I have gravel handlebars and the length worked out just right. That said, I now understand why the Gravel version is 20 cm longer. The finishing strip is a stretchy self-adhesive band that holds incredibly well — much better than ordinary electrical tape.

📐 Summary

In real-world terms, I used this setup for the 1,700 km Race through Poland. About 90% was tarmac, with the rest being unpaved roads of varying quality. The bars felt noticeably more comfortable than with my previous tape. They were definitely a bit chunkier, but that actually suited me. Even though I was riding essentially non-stop (out of 110 hours total, I was stationary for just 14), I had no finger numbness or issues with fine motor control. As for tyres, I ran 32 mm at 4 bar. My left palm had a bit more pressure on it and I do feel some numbness there — but given the extreme nature of the effort, I consider that a great result.

Overall, I'm very happy with both the tape and the AllRoad choice. It's ideal for my use case. I'd only go for the Gravel version if I had a different bike and regularly rode rougher terrain. The comfort improvement over a standard tape is definitely noticeable.

• Buy Orthocell foam padding on Amazon
• Buy Ergon Bar Tape on Amazon