While fitted on a handlebar, these have a super minimal look to them which makes you wonder if they’re almost too simple. But if you take a peek at some product photos from OneUp, you’ll see that there's quite a bit going on inside of the lock-on sleeve. If you didn’t already know, lock-on grips have a plastic sleeve that runs through the center of the actual rubber which makes it so you can tighten them down to the bar so they don’t slip. This is a tried and trued method used by mostly all grip manufacturers, however there is a drawback to this design. If you come from a BMX background then you’ve probably used slip-on grips for years, and are plenty used to spraying hairspray underneath them so they don’t slide around. Well, slip-on grips are just straight up rubber. So even if a lock-on grip and a slip-on grip have the same outer diameter, the slip-on grip has physically more rubber between your hand and the handlebar. This means a slip-on grip will be a bit more comfortable since there’s more rubber to absorb vibration, making them a bit more gentle on your hands. Do they make me superhuman? Well no, however they just have a noticeably squishier feeling if you grab a pair mounted on handlebars and I like any little bit that helps.

    OneUp took this well known knowledge and applied it to their grip’s sleeve. Parts of the sleeve are cut out, leaving more rubber in between your hand and the handlebar. You’ve probably noticed that you usually wear out the top-outer-palm area on your grips as this is where most of your weight pushes into the bar. The majority of the cut-outs of the plastic sleeve on the OneUp grips are towards the outside of the palm area to reduce hand fatigue from the area most affected by handlebar feedback. Also, rather than having lock-on clamps on both ends of the grip, OneUp decided to go with only a single clamp on the inside of the grip so they could fit even more rubber toward the end of the hand. Some people prefer dual lock-on clamp grips as they might feel more comfort knowing they won’t move anywhere, however I don’t feel like these are going anywhere.

    These grips use a 20a rubber compound which is super tacky, yet I don’t feel like they’ve worn out very much at all over the past several months (generally less than others). This may be due to the additional rubber in the sleeve cutouts, or OneUp has some special rubber magic up their sleeves. Not only does that sticky rubber help you hang off the back of the bike confidently knowing your hands are glued to the bar, but the bottom portion of the grip uses saw tooth finger ramps which are super unique. Rather than the normal waffle pattern used by brands like ODI, the OneUp’s finger gripper ramps cover about 75% of the total grip length so all fingers besides your finger have a little somethin’ extra to hang onto. I, personally, can’t stand grips without the extra cushion and security of some sort of pattern on the lower portion of the grip as I just feel like my hands are about to slide off the bars. On top, there’s a minimalist diamond knurled texture which is very reminiscent of some OG dirt bike grips. The diamond knurling is just the icing on the cake to give your hand even more texture to grip onto; especially on those super wet riding days where your hands are soaked and you fall in the mud resulting in super muddy palms and grips.

    While I’m lame and running black grips, OneUp produces these hand huggers in 7 total different colors to match pretty much any bike. The outer diameter is 30mm and the total length is 136mm to fit mostly all human mountain biker’s hands. And last but not least, they weigh 97 grams per pair. Is this lighter or heavier than other grips? I have no idea as I’ve never weighed grips before since I really just want something that’s comfy.

OneUp killed it with their first variation of a mountain bike grip. This is probably because the company is owned and operated by riders who know what other riders want. The rubber is grippy yet durable, the sleeve cutouts reduce a little bit of hand fatigue, the minimal design/physical size/color options will make pretty much everyone happy and the finger ramps let you really hang off the back of the bike. All in all, you just can’t go wrong with the OneUp Components Lock-On Grips.

Want to run these grips? Check them out below:

Until next time, Happy Trails!

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