Cork Grips and Shellac

[caption id="attachment_71" align="aligncenter" width="558" caption="Raleigh DL-1 with shellacked cork grips"][/caption]

This past week I decided to follow the trend I’ve seen on some vintage bike blogs, notably on Velo Orange and on Lovely Bike, of shellacking my cork grips. Really, nothing to it. Just pulled the grips off the bike before they had a chance to get dirty and grimy, and put a couple of coats of amber shellac on them, letting each coat dry for around 30 minutes to an hour between coats.

If there was anything the least bit challenging about doing this, it was finding a can of amber shellac. I’d paid a grand total of $6.00 for the grips. When I finally found the shellac, I paid almost $14 for a one-quart can at Menard’s. I have enough shellac now to last the rest of my life.

It’s a great look, I think, and I took a 15 mile ride on Sunday to try things out. I didn’t notice any real difference in the texture or comfort of the grips as a result of the shellac, so that’s a good thing.

Now I’m looking at pictures of bikes with burlap twine that’s been wound around various parts of the bike and then shellacked. Perhaps because I have this huge can of shellac hanging around, I’m pretty tempted to use it up. We’ll see if I go completely bonkers. In the case of bicycle adornments, sometimes less is more.

I will say that the natural next step is going to be adding a Brooks B-67 honey colored saddle.

The B-66 is the usual choice. It was one of the two usual choices for Raleigh bikes of this era. It fits on a straight seat post. But it lacks adjustability. And that’s something I think is really necessary with most Brooks saddles. At least for me, the Brooks saddle is the most comfortable thing around, but only if you can get it set up at exactly the correct tilt. I prefer a two-bolt seat post, so I’ve got one on order. I’ll make sure that it fits okay, then order a B-67, which fits on modern style seat posts.



Once that’s done, about the only other thing I am considering is to find, or build, some kind of saddle bag support. As seen in this photo, my saddle bag is almost hanging down to the rear mud guard (or fender), and the leather straps are starting to strain a bit.