CrankBrothers Cobalt Foam Grips

One of the easiest and cheapest ways of dropping weight is to change your heavy (but fashionable) ODI grips to foam ESI grips. Those huge, thick rubber grips with 2 aluminum rings at both ends + 2 steel screws + a tube of plastic housing would make any weight weenie cringe.

I weighed three that I have for comparison:

OURY grips = 64gr

Ruffian = 54gr

Ritchey foam grips cut to 11cm = 25gr

The question is, why oh why don't we just use foam grips every time? The most common reason is that the modern locking ring grips (for example ODI grips) make life a lot easier by just turning 2 screws and presto, you have just installed your grips. It's foolproof. Not to mention that these locking rings come in a variety of colors. even the screws can be changed to titanium or aluminum anodized in your favorite color. The rubber grips come in a variety of patterns and colors as well. As for the foam grips, you can have it in any color you want as long as it is black :-)

Also, you have to be prepared for the relatively lengthy and messy process of installing them or else your foam grips will be spinning in your handle bar like SRAM gripshifts. It might even cause you an endo or two.

Well here comes crankbrothers to the rescue. The Cobalt foam grips are just that. They are black foam grips. However, crankbrothers have deciced to attach it to a plastic tubing and the tubing is secured by two minimalist aluminum 'C' rings at both ends. This approach makes customers happy by, first : not having to use messy glue and second : promising a weight of 65gr per pair (verified by my kitchen scale as 66gr or 33gr per piece).

So now, we have a happy medium. I have lost 31gr per piece (I used to use OURY with aluminum locking rings and no bar caps) and yet I did not have to resort to gluing my grips to my handlebar.

BUT ! Of course, as documented by my blog, life has taught me that there is no such thing as free lunch. After installing the grips, to my dismay, no matter how much I tighten the screws for the lock rings, the grips slip as if I have SRAM gripshifts :-( ... a few minutes of headscratching later, I decided to smear the insides of the grips' plastic tube housing with Finish Line Fiber Grip.

What a lifesaver! One day I will do a review of Finish Line Fiber Grip as I find this product really superb.

So there it is! Problem solved and I have found another 'cheap and good' product :-)