Tech Spec Tank Grips Review

Tech Spec Tank Grips Review

After my first ride home on the 1199 Panigale I could confirm rumors that the stock seat is in fact quite slippery. While wearing jeans there was absolutely no grip to the seat. Later in the day I took another ride wearing my Dianese two piece race leathers and it was much, much better.


Never the less tank grips as well as sport seat are definitely a must.

Ducati performance racing seat although a thing of beauty, unfortunately sets one back for around 250$.

Ducati Performance Race Seat

A good set of tank grips on the other hand will cost anywhere from 30 to 70 $ online.
After an hour of searching and reading reviews i settled on the Tech Spec product seen above. Their products are available at http://techspec-usa.com and through their eBay store.
They offer two options of rubber quality in one shape for Panigale.

C3 59.95 $

Snake Skin 64.95 $

Panigale C3 for 59.95 $  and Panigale Snake Skin for 64.95$.

    

Package Contents

Frankly from the pictures on the website I could not tell why Snake Skin material is supposed to be 5 $ better but opted for it anyways.

Delivery was timely and in three days I was ready for application.
Application was pretty straight forward, however one thing i did not like right away. When removing the non stick white plastic from the back, I accidentally pulled on the adhesive layer itself and it started to detach from the rubber pretty easily. Unfortunately I could not manage a quality picture of this.
The rubber itself is pretty thick and does not stick very easy in the curvy places of the tank. For this reason I recommend to keep them in the sun for a few minutes to warm up and then they are much more flexible. Adhesive is pretty strong but allows for adjustments if needed.

Tank before application

In progress

   

Done

Once all done, in my opinion the bike looks good with these grips.
Tech Spec recommends to let the adhesive set overnight and so I did.

Next morning I took it for a test ride to New River. This road has a few long bends, that allow for decent lean angle and hanging off.
The feel and grip were very good and I was very happy with the product.
While hanging off the upper tank pad provides excellent grip for the inner thigh. Under heavy breaking lover fairing pads are holding your knees well anchored.

Unfortunately that was just the first road impression.

Following weekend I took the bike to the track.
I am getting ahead of my self here, look for a full post about the track day.

EXCEL trackdays http://www.xceltrackdays.com were holding their first trackday at Arizona Motor Sports park after the summer break.
I was excited beyond anything reasonable, first trackday of the season, new bike and new tank grips to review.
Well the grips did not hold up. After the first session of 30 minutes this is what they looked like:


Lower fairing pads came off completely. Further the adhesive mixed with dust and ruined my white leathers.

I tried reattaching them a number of times, but after first breaking point they would shift. Adhesive actually came off the rubber and remained on the fairing plastic.

Next day I took some pictures and wrote a letter to Tech Spec customer support. They responded in a matter of minutes and admitted that they were suffering from a bad batch of adhesive. Full replacement set was shipped out to me the same day free of charge. Still waiting for it and hope its gonna work out.