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Lock-Ons: Lizard Skin Logo, Yeti Hardcore, Intense and Ruffian!
Chris, Scott, James - 10th October 2005
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When you're lookin for a new set of grips, look no further than ODI. Forget grips slipping, breaking in two. Forget wiring them on, forget zip ties, forget the cheap hairspray.. You get the idea. ODI's use smart 'Lock Jaw' clamps. Basically they have pieces machined out of them, with the corresponding bit on your grips (technical speak here..), which snap together. You then place them on your bars and nip up the 2.5mm allen screws on the Lock Jaws (one on each Jaw) until the grip stops moving. Some people have had trouble with rounding these off, but really you dont need much force at all. They grip the bars pretty well and once they've stopped moving around, thats it. Dont do it up anymore!
Little known fact, not only do ODI produce MTB and BMX grips.. Oh no.. They make grips for MX bikes, ATV's (basically quad bikes), jet-ski's and even ski-doo's.
There are lots of different flavours of grips around for Lock-Ons, and we're going to try and cover as many as possible here. They're all different patterns, some are even dual ply (ie, some soft rubber, and some hard rubber.. not toilet paper..) here's a brief run down on around half of the different types you can get. We'll be covering the rest in the near future.
Chris' Lizard Skins Logo
OK, we all know how great ODI Lock-Ons are, so I won't mention that. Lizard Skins are the summer riding grips. Slightly harder compound than my Ruffians, and narrower than Yetis. The grips are pretty much slick, with just a few cuts for grip. This means that there is great grip on your gloves or hands when it's dry or damp, but you're likely to slip if it's muddy. The harder compound will last all summer, and probably most of the next summer.
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Scott's Intense
These grips are the grip in the middle really, they're not hard like the ruffian, yet not soft like the yeti. They are hard so you can get a good grip round them, but they are soft enough to be comfortable. They have got that just right. Another good feature is that they are slightly sticky, so in the summer they are great for riding with no gloves, as your hands really do grip. They also work great with gloves in dry or wet. They do become quite slippery when wet, but after a minute or two riding round they dry up nicely, even without gloves. They also feature a flange to stop your hands wandering over to the stem, but I did find this got in the way slightly with my shimano shifters, as the levers caught on the flange a bit, soon sorted that out with a Stanley knife though. But I have had no problems with my sram shifter with them. Overall great grip, relatively long lasting and feel nice in your hands. They get a thumbs up from me.
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James' Ruffians
The Ruffians are the simplest grips in the range, you get a knarled surface on the whole grip which will grip your gloves pretty well, maybe not great for using with bare hands as its a very hard compound. The advantage of the hard compound is you wont have to buy many of these! They last really well compared to some of the softer grips. We tested these both in muddy conditions and in hot weather, and wearing gloves I didnt notice any slipping, although personally i'd prefer a softer compound grip because I prefer to have something give slightly when i'm holding the bars, but this is merely personal taste. No problems with them slipping along the bars at all, although the end plugs did fall out once, but once i'd done them up again a lot tighter I havent had any problems since.
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James' Yeti Hardcore
Now i've been using these on my XC bike, the grips I had on it originally were glued down at the edges, and eventually they'd started to stretch and tear themselves off on the end of my bars. I love these grips, in the picture above you can see the lower surface of the grip is very similar to the Ruffians, this is also using the same hard compound as the ruffians.
The raised 'Yeti' logo's you can see dont just look pretty, they're made of a softer, stickier rubber which mean you get a bit of give when you squeeze them, they also absorb a little bit of the shocks you get, which I like. The sticky nature of the raised part of the grip also means that you can use these with bare hands as well, and they feel pretty nice. I think the idea is to align the big yeti logo with your palm, and as you can see in the picture below, the smaller logos will go where your fingers are. No problems with my shifters or brakes and this time I learnt to do the end plugs up tight!
We've got a whole load more grips to test for the next installment, which should come in the next month or so.
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