The Extremum limited camo bar tape is out of stock in Chameleon and Blue. The remaining colors have very limited inventory.
I was thinking about wrapping one of the colors on my personal cyclocross bike and posting "here's how it looks when wrapped" here,
but if I use a limited edition product and there's a customer who wasn't able to get that particular color,
I'd probably get yelled at, so I held back.
Instead, Arundel's Art Gecko bar tape came in stock,
so I wrapped it on my personal road bike.
Or rather, chronologically I already wrapped it before the Extremum arrived.
↑This is what the pattern looks like, and like Extremum's camo pattern,
only the bar-end area has the patterned design.
There are nine colors total, but I only stocked two this time.
The rubber material is heat-welded (probably) and printed on,
the pattern gradually fades out
and ultimately becomes just the black base.
The texture of this base color
reminds me of the bar tape side from a set of
hook-and-loop (Velcro/magic tape)
glove and bar tape that Pearl Izumi released very briefly a while back.
The glove's palm side and bar tape had a Velcro relationship,
and when used as a set, the grip performance was extremely high,
but when you tried to shift your hands from the drops to the brake levers or elsewhere,
the glove would stick to the handlebar because of the Velcro,
causing the steering to turn unexpectedly in a full rotation—
I had some scary moments with that.
The product name "Art Gecko,"
the original version of Gecko Grip (the brown in the image above)
was derived from Gecko (lizard) scales,
but there's no model in the current lineup with that kind of texture.
It's just become "Arundel uses Gecko as the bar tape product name."
The current Gecko Grip has a digital pattern like the black in the image.
With the Art Gecko, it seems the process of heat-welding the pattern
didn't work well with Arundel's logo's deep embossing,
so as a result the black base portion became a monotonous pattern.
What I prioritize in bar tape is
grip performance with bare hands and whether it slips with hand sweat or when wet.
I ride bare-handed in summer and only wear gloves when it's cold,
so I don't have—well, actually I do have winter long-finger gloves,
but I don't have many fingerless gloves and barely use them.
By the way, when you ride bare-handed and crash and instinctively put your hand down,
the damage to your palm is completely different, so I'm not one to talk,
but please wear fingerless gloves even in summer!
Anyway, the old Fizik Soft Touch or Tacky in 2mm thickness
was my personal optimal solution for bare-hand bar tape,
but it disappeared when Fizik completely revamped their lineup.
Soft Touch has slightly lower durability, absorbs water,
and Tacky has a slightly harder feel, so
it's not that one is superior to the other—
it's more of a trade-off situation.
The current Tacky is a different product despite having the same name.
After that, what I found as a better choice, if not the best,
was Arundel's Gecko Grip.
The moderately sticky feel is nice, and it doesn't slip much even with hand sweat.
Regarding Soft Touch grip and the power of the Kabutomushi fellow (→here)
LOOK has bar tape with a similar pattern,
but this one slips more with hand sweat.
I thought the manufacturer was the same, but maybe it's not.
However, this one lacks cushioning in a good way, or has
a pleasantly firm feel,
so if I'm wearing gloves in winter, I prefer this one.
I wrapped it. Here's how it looks.
To be honest, the bare-hand grip is inferior to the Gecko Grip.
But since it's glove season now, it's not particularly a problem.
The blue tone of the bar tape and the frame's blue don't match,
but blue is a color that rarely matches among parts anyway, so I'm not concerned.
This is irrelevant, but
I thought the CatEye VOLT 800
was "clicking" securely into the brake lever,
but it wasn't, and it vibrated loose and fell off during riding,
damaging the tip and chipping the paint,
so I painted over it with a blue gradient to cover it up.
The black part of the Art Gecko,
when I splashed water from the bottle on it forcefully,
I noticed it's water-repellent.
So with hand sweat or wet-weather riding, the difference in grip feel between dry and wet
might be smaller than with the Gecko Grip.
Also, the rubber on the bar-end patterned area has excellent grip feel,
but you don't continuously grip that end part anyway, and
on the drops where the pattern is starting to fade,
the rubber's grip feel is almost nonexistent.
In short, it might seem like I'm not saying good things,
but this is actually on the higher end of my evaluations, just so you know.
Addendum:
I received a comment that the water-repellent effect is due to release agent residue
and that it will stop being water-repellent after some use.
That's correct, and as seen in the images in the post already,
it no longer repels water that way.
It's the same situation as when a new tire is covered in white powder.
Thanks for the comment.
And one more thing.
When using it with gloves on,
I thought the rubber welding would start to peel off in flakes
and the palm side of the glove would end up covered in debris,
but the welding is quite strong, and so far there's been no problem.
I was thinking about wrapping one of the colors on my personal cyclocross bike and posting "here's how it looks when wrapped" here,
but if I use a limited edition product and there's a customer who wasn't able to get that particular color,
I'd probably get yelled at, so I held back.
Instead, Arundel's Art Gecko bar tape came in stock,
so I wrapped it on my personal road bike.
Or rather, chronologically I already wrapped it before the Extremum arrived.
↑This is what the pattern looks like, and like Extremum's camo pattern,
only the bar-end area has the patterned design.
There are nine colors total, but I only stocked two this time.
The rubber material is heat-welded (probably) and printed on,
the pattern gradually fades out
and ultimately becomes just the black base.
The texture of this base color
reminds me of the bar tape side from a set of
hook-and-loop (Velcro/magic tape)
glove and bar tape that Pearl Izumi released very briefly a while back.
The glove's palm side and bar tape had a Velcro relationship,
and when used as a set, the grip performance was extremely high,
but when you tried to shift your hands from the drops to the brake levers or elsewhere,
the glove would stick to the handlebar because of the Velcro,
causing the steering to turn unexpectedly in a full rotation—
I had some scary moments with that.
The product name "Art Gecko,"
the original version of Gecko Grip (the brown in the image above)
was derived from Gecko (lizard) scales,
but there's no model in the current lineup with that kind of texture.
It's just become "Arundel uses Gecko as the bar tape product name."
The current Gecko Grip has a digital pattern like the black in the image.
With the Art Gecko, it seems the process of heat-welding the pattern
didn't work well with Arundel's logo's deep embossing,
so as a result the black base portion became a monotonous pattern.
What I prioritize in bar tape is
grip performance with bare hands and whether it slips with hand sweat or when wet.
I ride bare-handed in summer and only wear gloves when it's cold,
so I don't have—well, actually I do have winter long-finger gloves,
but I don't have many fingerless gloves and barely use them.
By the way, when you ride bare-handed and crash and instinctively put your hand down,
the damage to your palm is completely different, so I'm not one to talk,
but please wear fingerless gloves even in summer!
Anyway, the old Fizik Soft Touch or Tacky in 2mm thickness
was my personal optimal solution for bare-hand bar tape,
but it disappeared when Fizik completely revamped their lineup.
Soft Touch has slightly lower durability, absorbs water,
and Tacky has a slightly harder feel, so
it's not that one is superior to the other—
it's more of a trade-off situation.
The current Tacky is a different product despite having the same name.
After that, what I found as a better choice, if not the best,
was Arundel's Gecko Grip.
The moderately sticky feel is nice, and it doesn't slip much even with hand sweat.
Regarding Soft Touch grip and the power of the Kabutomushi fellow (→here)
LOOK has bar tape with a similar pattern,
but this one slips more with hand sweat.
I thought the manufacturer was the same, but maybe it's not.
However, this one lacks cushioning in a good way, or has
a pleasantly firm feel,
so if I'm wearing gloves in winter, I prefer this one.
I wrapped it. Here's how it looks.
To be honest, the bare-hand grip is inferior to the Gecko Grip.
But since it's glove season now, it's not particularly a problem.
The blue tone of the bar tape and the frame's blue don't match,
but blue is a color that rarely matches among parts anyway, so I'm not concerned.
This is irrelevant, but
I thought the CatEye VOLT 800
was "clicking" securely into the brake lever,
but it wasn't, and it vibrated loose and fell off during riding,
damaging the tip and chipping the paint,
so I painted over it with a blue gradient to cover it up.
The black part of the Art Gecko,
when I splashed water from the bottle on it forcefully,
I noticed it's water-repellent.
So with hand sweat or wet-weather riding, the difference in grip feel between dry and wet
might be smaller than with the Gecko Grip.
Also, the rubber on the bar-end patterned area has excellent grip feel,
but you don't continuously grip that end part anyway, and
on the drops where the pattern is starting to fade,
the rubber's grip feel is almost nonexistent.
In short, it might seem like I'm not saying good things,
but this is actually on the higher end of my evaluations, just so you know.
Addendum:
I received a comment that the water-repellent effect is due to release agent residue
and that it will stop being water-repellent after some use.
That's correct, and as seen in the images in the post already,
it no longer repels water that way.
It's the same situation as when a new tire is covered in white powder.
Thanks for the comment.
And one more thing.
When using it with gloves on,
I thought the rubber welding would start to peel off in flakes
and the palm side of the glove would end up covered in debris,
but the welding is quite strong, and so far there's been no problem.