Friday night I installed a pair of Ergon GC3 Handlebar Grips on my Gary Fisher Big Sur mountain bike. It took about two minutes to remove my old handlebar grips and about five minutes to install the Ergon GC3 Handlebar Grips. A quick 24 mile ride in the rain on Saturday morning revealed all I needed to know about these grips—they are fantastic!
Ergon GC3 Ergonomic Bicycle Grip
Since I live in Illinois I don’t really have any mountains to climb, but I do have access to some great off-road bike trails. Sometimes after a long ride on one of my mountain bikes my fingers would be numb and my forearms a bit sore because of my old handlebar grips. Regular handlebar grips offer a small platform for your palms to rest on, but the Ergon GC3 Handlebar Grips offer 40% larger platform for your hands. In addition to the larger grip platform the Ergon grips include a great set of bar ends that can be independently adjusted. The Ergon GC3 Handlebar Grips will offer you several different hand positions, but I found standard position so comfortable that I really didn’t need the others.
The only tool you need to install these grips is a 5mm hex wrench, and this grip is not suitable for carbon fiber handlebars. The package these grips come in has a small German flag in the upper right-hand corner with the phrase “German innovation” next to it. Products like this remind why I have always appreciated German engineering!
Are these grips worth the $58 I paid for them? In my opinion the answer is yes. If your average ride is just to the corner ice cream shop there is no reason to buy them. However, if you put a lot of miles on your bike I think they are a good investment.
