Wolf Tooth Supple Bar Tape is 5mm thick. Yes, you heard that right, 5mm thick. This stuff is a love seat for your hands. There’s an argument to be made that sometimes too much cushion is too much cushion. Most cushy bar tape is 3mm thick. This stuff is a whopping 66% cushier!
I was curious what the logical conclusion of cushioned bar tape might feel like, and I think I can say, safely, that I don’t expect to see 6mm bar tape any time soon. 5mm is a lot. It’s a lot to add to the bar diameter, and it’s a lot of cushion under hand.
I put it on my gravel bike. I ride a lot of single-track on that bike, which in New England means rocks and roots and beat up hands, so I figured it’d be a good test. Did it help? Maybe. It certainly helped with impact, but I’m inclined to say my grip wasn’t maybe as good, due to the tapes smooth finish and the larger total grip. The same cushy tape does come in a 2.5mm thickness (Supple Lite), so that’s a thing to consider.
Because Wolf Tooth Supple Bar Tape is significantly thicker than other tapes, it might be more challenging to install, but Wolf Tooth made it 5mm wider as well (40mm vs. the 35mm width of most tapes), so that helps considerably. I didn’t have to fuss with it too much to get a good wrap.
Listen, if you’re not prone to getting sore, tired hands on the bike, then maybe this isn’t for you. If I was going to knock it for something, it’s that, with bare, sweaty hands, the grip ain’t great. The tape is very smooth. If you wear gloves, no big deal.
Also, if you have small hands (I wear medium gloves FWIW) I’m not sure it’ll work for you, since it adds a full centimeter, roughly, to the diameter of your bars.
Wolf Tooth’s Supple Bar Tape comes in Black, Red, Blue, Brown, and Orange. One guess what color I got. It’s $39.95.