The old grips are gone once for all, and now you need to put the new ones on. What seemed to be an easy task turned into hell on Earth. Your palms burn from the hopeless twisting and pushing, and no solutions make it any better including using water or gloves.
Every bike mechanic has his or her secret way to put grips on. Some of them are quite sophisticated, featuring several precisely executed steps or acquiring special products. Forget every single one of them as there is a simple and 100% effective solution that can be found in almost every bathroom drawer. It’s a hair spray! This technique has been tried and tested even by We Love Cycling ambassador Richard Gasperotti.
It’s cheap and easy. You may either spray the inside of the grips or the handlebar itself. For tight grips, spray both. The grips will slip onto the handlebar as smoothly as if you used lubricants like GT85 or WD40 but unlike them, it will not make the grips twist around randomly for weeks.
The secret trick is that once the alcohol contained in the liquid dries out, the spray will glue the grip in place. To remove, just use hairspray again. I prefer grips fitted with locks that are usually easier to mount and resistant against unintentional spinning. Hair spray works fantastic even on very tight or unyielding types of bike grips, though.
