Ergon Sweats the Details of an Overlooked Part of Your Bike

Over the past few years, the big trends in mountain bikes have been making miniscule tweaks to suspension and rushing to build bikes from carbon fiber.

And while suspension engineers have chased the elusive goal of making a full-suspension bike that pedals like a hardtail and frame designers have whipped out thermoplastic frames, a bunch of German ergonomics geniuses have quietly done something that's cheaper and possibly more important.

See, no matter what sort of bike you ride, your hands, feet and butt are your primary contact points. Saddles and pedals have gotten lots of attention, but grips have largely been overlooked.

No longer.

Ergon has pretty much re-defined bike grips. And yeah, it's just a grip. But one ride on the Ergon GP-1 Leichtbau grips have convinced me that they can make my ride better. The teardrop-shaped profile gives a nice resting point for the palms. My grip felt more secure, yet relaxed.

Despite being what I'd consider an important advance, Ergon has gotten overlooked. Despite being a former shop employee, they flew under my radar until I noticed that Ergon sponsored mountain bike legend and six-time Leadville 100 winner David Wiens. For an old mountain biker like me, Wiensy (as he's often known) brings instant credibility. I looked up Ergon, and decided to keep an eye out for its products. I found them during a recent trip to REI. They were $29.99, which is a good chunk for grips. But I wanted to see what was up.

Installing them was easy. I just removed my old ODI Lockjaw grips, and slid the Leichtbaus on. I secured them using the 4-millimeter allen screw - I tightened them just enough so that they wouldn't rotate, but not hard enough to damage my carbon fiber handlebar. There's only one bolt for each grip, unlike the two on each Lockjaw. So I even saved a little time.

My first ride on them was a 30-mile offroad singletrack excursion. I am convinced that these deserve a permanent place on any of my mountain bikes. I'm also convinced that they make a huge difference in comfort and control.

I have to give props to Ergon for taking on an overlooked part. Its team of developers has hit a home run on a small detail that gets overlooked for things that are far more flashy and sexy - but maybe just not as important.