August Gear Review: Lizard Skin DSP Tape

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.

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.