I use a lot of leather and care for it over the years, though I use cotton tape on my bars. In my experience, properly oiled leather grips everything better than dry leather, to itself, to steel, wood, hands, feet, whatever. So you idea to pre-oil is sound. If I were installing those on my bars (which I'd love to do, by the way! great gift!) I would also pre-stretch -- after oiling, stand on one end with your foot, and pull (harder for thicker leather). Then, as you wrap the bars, pull very snug at each wrap to get it good and snug. I wouldn't wait for it to get "dry," you want the leather to always be soft and supple.
I recommend Obenauf's heavy duty LP over their lighter oil. It will protect against sweat and sun better. With abandon, Patrick On Tuesday, December 17, 2013 4:08:36 PM UTC-7, Michael wrote: > > Thought I read somewhere that Brooks says don't put anything on it. >> > > Someone else here can chime in who knows for sure. > > I would think dressing it before putting it on would be a bad idea because > you want the grip of the tape adhesive to be perfect on the handlebar. I > would be afraid that the dressing would interfere with the tape gripping > the bar. Hard to keep it off the underside of the tape. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
