For long time I was using heat shrink for my hoods it was light and durable but it looks like crap.
These weighed 5 grams each.


I was walking through the arts and crafts store yesterday looking for finger paints and found some thin felt with adhesive back.
The result turned out really nice at 3 grams each.



I didnt want to waste black weighing it so here is some brown.

i had this idea for a time now and it works well

first pic is on modded campa records
second and third pic is on my homebuild carbonbrakelevers

mm, my b-t-phoods seems heavy now

But how do you do it and get it to sit in place well? How is the comfort and does it work in rain?

_________________
/jonas l
http://cerrol.wordpress.com (my cyclingblog)

I had the btp before. But they were just ok. I had to glue them in place and had some silicon under them to fit them better.
So i thought if i have to pay and work on them i better just do my own.

I just cut a rectangular bit and put glue on the lever. Then I just put this bit on the lever and press it on the lever. Then I cut the sides almost right. Just leave some millimeters.
Then I take a lighter and go over the hole lever with it. With this you make it a bit more plastic like. You can decide how much you smelt the outside, more=more plastic but less comfy on the hands. You even smelt the sides to the ride length with the lighter.
After that,you can sand it a bit if you had made a a bit to plastic.

If you have normal levers, you should sand them a bit before and use some glue wich works on that plastic.
On my carbon levers, it works with kinda everything.

It is good to even made that before the bartape. So you can get it a bit under the tape and the tape holds it in place too. And the sides look a bit better with the bartape over them.

Off course it is not as comfy like shimano or campa but I think it works fine. The longest I had it on was 12000km and just changed it because I chanded the levers.

The stuff I have has an adhesive back so you literally cut the shape you want and stick it on. It stretches a good bit so no lumpiness. They feel like a tennis ball.

I'm sure you could wrap your grips in anything actually. I'm thinking about trying some Alcantera. and it it works do my bars too.

do you guys wear gloves? The felt seems like it might be terrible when your hands get sweaty. This a good idea though... time to go browse through some fabrics/materials.

I never wear gloves over 5degrees.

The do not get slippery when wet. I like mine a lot more then btp's for example.

Nice work.

So if these weigh 3 g each, how much did you save? ie: how much do standard hoods weigh? Especially Sram Red

Cheers

GJ

my campa 10s record were somthing over 40g together.
so a bit more then 30g you can save there

stock Red hoods are 43-44 g for the pair. that's a lot of weight saved.

I've always thought about using those thin faux leather materials as they feel quite nice but they don't conform too well.