Lizard Skins Wasatch grips review

The Lizard Skins Wasatch grips offer plenty of traction with a slim and simple design that provides excellent feedback through the bar but lacks some long-distance comfort.

At £32, the Wasatch grips don’t offer the best value for money, although there’s no doubting their traction.

The Wasatch grips feature a single inside collar clamp that locks onto the handlebar, keeping them firmly in place.

A 3mm Allen key is used to tighten the clamp, allowing for easy adjustments when out on the trail.

The grip has a chamfered edge that meets the collar and remains a constant thickness to the end, with a diamond-cut pattern featuring across the length of the grip.

On the inside third of the Wasatch, there's a horizontal ribbed pattern that's designed to counter hand rotation.

The same pattern features at the end of the grip to prevent your hands slipping off.

The grips also feature an in-built bar end, which is made from solid plastic.

Lizard Skins claims a pair of Wasatch grips weighs 88g, although the pair I tested came in below this figure at 84g on our scales.

The grips measure 136mm long with a diameter of 29mm and are available in five colours.

Lizard Skins Wasatch performance

The Wasatch grips are painless to fit, with their narrow body sliding over the handlebar easily and the clamp remaining accessible to tighten around the brake and gear levers.

The clamps keep the grips in place well, with no movement detected even on the wettest days on the trail.

I found the grips rely heavily on the diamond-cut pattern, with the knurled surface creating good adhesion to skin and MTB gloves alike.

This made the horizontal ribbed pattern feel unnecessary, because it only protrudes slightly and doesn’t seem to add all that much more traction.

Lizard Skins says it uses a larger diameter in key areas of the grip to provide better cushioning for impacts and vibration damping. However, riders who look to their grips to reduce harshness will find the Wasatch quite jarring, with the grip providing very little in the way of cushioning.

This means you feel a lot more of what’s happening beneath your tyres. On long rides, this noticeably increased hand and lower-arm fatigue compared to the more cushioned Gusset G2.

While my test grips remain relatively unworn after testing, the hard plastic end caps have picked up a few scratches from leaning my bike on walls and resting it on the ground. This makes them look more heavily used than they are when compared to grips that feature rubberised end caps.

Lizard Skins Wasatch bottom line

The Lizard Skins Wasatch grips offer plenty of traction and trail feedback thanks to their thin design.

With little cushioning and a slightly high price, the Wasatch can't compete with the best mountain bike grips, but there’s no denying the level of grip on offer.