Urban cycling myths #2: The naked handlebar

Call us revisionists, but we've never been crazy about the bare-handlebar look. It ain't that pretty and it seems dangerous (we have a constant battle with sweaty palms--wot, you're surprised?!--and we hate wearing gloves). Surely the makers and operators of the world's earliest track bikes did not intend for riders to become so obsessed with style and weight that they'd ride with naked drops? It just looks like unfinished business to our eye.

But Strangelife turned us onto these pretty awesome (and occasionally gruesome) art pieces by Kosuke Masuda.

It would, of course, be a sin against God and Man to cover bars like this with corktape; cloth tape and shellac would put you into a very hot hole in hell indeed.

We note with some smugness that these things are mounted not in the headtube of a sexy Italian track bike, but on a wooden and brass base. In other words, destined for a wall in a museum, not a hook in your garage. Unless you're Diamond Jim Brady, that is.

If untaped bars are naked, then these pipes are sleeved with some amazing tattoos.