Smanie Elite Bar Tape

Smanie's Elite Bar Tape is thick, cushioned and grippy and great at absorbing buzz and bumps on both road and gravel, and its subtle branding results in a clean-looking handlebar. It's well priced too, but as our best handlebar tape buyer's guide shows, it's up against a lot of opposition when it comes to wrapping your bar.

> Buy Smanie Elite Bar Tape for £18.99 from Smanie

Feel

Smanie's Elite bar tape has a premium feel for the price. It's grippy and comfortable, and its 3mm thickness helps to absorb road buzz and the more noticeable jolts from gravel riding.

The grippiness is noticeable the first time you use the tape, and the grip becomes even more evident when it's raining or when you start to get sweaty. 

With cyclocross riders being one of the target customers for Smanie's Elite Bar Tape – along with road and gravel riders – this tape has to cope with being splattered with mud. And it did so too, with my grip on the tape never feeling compromised.

> How to wrap handlebar tape in 10 easy steps

Another feature of the Elite tape is that it's very easy to clean, as it doesn't absorb mud or dirt. Instead, any muck and crud sits superficially on the surface, which makes it easy to wipe off. This should keep the bar tape looking good for the long term too.

Wrapping

In spite of the tape's 3mm thickness, Smanie has made the Elite fairly stretchy and flexible, and as a result of this the tape wraps pretty well. The tapered edges help, creating a smooth edge that offers an excellent grip when you're sprinting in the drops.

My preferred method of wrapping tape is the 'figure of eight', but using this method there was some overlap around the hoods. Thankfully, Smanie provides the perfect length of strip to place behind the hood. This does away with the need of the figure of eight, allowing for a less bulky tape covering around the hood.

Smanie describes its Elite tape as one 'of the longest on the market', though I found its 223cm length similar to that of other bar tapes. It was long enough for the traditional look I favour, wrapping the tape further along the bar and closer to the stem than many riders prefer.

I did find the tape's adhesive backing strip extremely sticky, which could be to its detriment. If you have to rewrap the tape for whatever reason – a mistake first time around, for example – you're likely to leave the backing tape stuck to your bar. Thankfully the tape itself is sufficiently tacky so this shouldn't be too much of a problem, but if you have to rewrap your bar a few times I can see the backing strip separating from the tape entirely.

Overall, I did find the Elite quite straightforward to fit but it is less forgiving than a simpler cork tape.

Value

Smanie has targeted this at the very crowded and highly competitive sub-£20 market. And in many ways the Elite tape is a good product and one that's able to hold its own in this company – but I would argue there are a couple of areas that Smanie could improve upon.

My first gripe is the bar-end plugs, which aren't very secure and can easily be knocked out. At this price I'd have liked to see metal plugs such as those PNW uses on its £26 Components Coast Bar Tape that Mike reviewed.

I also feel that the backing tape really is just too sticky, which could restrict your ability to rewrap your handlebar if you make a mistake first time around.

But for £18.99 you do get a very tacky, comfortable and road bump-absorbing bar tape that comes in a choice of five colours – black, white, blue, orange and red – one of which should complement the look of your bike.

In spite of my feeling that Smanie's Elite tape could be better in a couple of ways, this is still a comfortable tape for rough roads or gravel and an option worth looking at.

Conclusion

Smanie's Elite bar tape is attractively priced and is a reasonable choice if you're looking to upgrade your road, gravel or adventure bike. It's comfortable, grippy and secure whatever the vagaries of the weather, and it's pleasingly easy to clean too. Though the end plugs could be better.

Verdict

Very comfortable bar tape that's grippy in all weathers and easy to keep clean, but the bar-end plugs are poor