Back before Cyclocrunk, I decided that the 40cm FSA Compact bars were too narrow. Actually, I’d decided that they were too narrow about a year before that, but I didn’t work at a shop then, so I was being cheap and just dealing with them. I swapped the 40s out for a pair of **Edge 42s I had laying around on the spare parts shelf. I liked the width, but the shape was pretty lame (ignore the dirty hoods):

So a couple of weeks ago, I ordered some “wet white” FSA compacts in 42cm.

This morning, while waiting for it to warm up outside, I swapped the bars over with the intention of re-wrapping them with some pretty blue Fizik tape that I’d had around the house for a while. Once I’d perfected the bar angle and position of the shifters, I broke out said tape, only to find that it wanted to crack and split when I pulled it tight…

I sent an email with photos to Fizik’s warranty department, and they wrote me back this morning letting me know that they would immediately send some new tape to me (yay for customer service!) Hopefully it gets here by next weekend so I can be ready for the Outdoors, Inc Midsouth Championship race, because as of right now, this is how it stands (Mr Clean Magic Eraser for the hoods, BTW):

**The story of the Edge bars is slightly mosr interesting than the bars themselves. The summer after my post-Metro nervous breakdown (go back & search March/April 2009 posts if you don’t know what I’m talking about), I raced the Oxford Crit Series on a composite team with Debbie Milne. The 2nd day, she was off the front and won a prime (matching Edge bars and stem) while I baby-sat the other women back in the field. After the race, she gave me the bars.