ODI Vanquish Grips First Look and Review

Hand fatigue is something that plagues many riders and can ruin a thrilling descent as quickly as a flat tire taking the wind out of your sails. There are countless products designed specifically to reduce hand fatigue and improve overall comfort, and the ODI Vanquish grips are exactly that. ODI is the grip superpower of the mountain bike and moto world, and they’ve teamed up with D30, a smaller company specializing in developing impact protection technology. D30’s bread and butter is body armor, but the Vanquish grips have proven they’re not a one trick pony.

ODI has done collaborations with tons of brands through their storied history, but D30 seems to be the first to introduce new technology into the rubber compound. D30’s material science and innovation lab reached out to ODI to incorporate their new GRIP compound into a new grip, and the Vanquish is the child of that partnership. D30 has gotten their fingers in some very cool projects, with their anti vibration technology making its way into F1 cars and literal moon boots, so it’s got quite the resume coming into the mountain bike world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, ODI and D30 are claiming that the Vanquish grip increases vibration damping, and shock absorption at the grip, keeping your hands fresher for longer.

Hexagons on top, diamonds on bottom

Well, it’s a grip, and when you hold it tight it’s not going anywhere. Reviewing any touch points on a bike is very subjective, and the saddles or grips that work for me may not work for you. Under my palm, the hexagonal shapes make for a slightly floaty feeling between my hands and the bars, but not to the point of losing control over my steering. Those hexagons do a great job of separating vibrations from the bar and my hands, allowing for a bit of movement between the two, and keeping my palms happier for longer. On the underside of the grips, the channels meant for my fingers feel as though there’s less material between the bar and my hands, giving a secure and “locked in” feeling at the fingers. Those channels didn’t quite fit the geometry of my fingers, and I squeeze my fingers against each other tight enough that my three fingers only take up two and a half of the channels. Oftentimes I find grip flanges to get in the way when reaching for my controls, but these mini flanges did a great job of keeping my hands in the right place while staying out of the way when it was time to shift or hit the dropper.

As for their vibration damping claims of the D30 rubber compound itself, it’s going to be very difficult for me to give a concrete answer on this. I wish there was a Vanquish grip without this technology that I could ride back to back with this grip to feel real world differences between the two, but alas. ODI’s rubber compound is already among my favorites, and adding the D30 special sauce didn’t change that. You’ll still feel hand fatigue on long rough descents, and I won’t tell you this is some kind of magical rubber compound that has made your current grips completely irrelevant. Overall, if you’re a fan of medium thickness grips, the ODI Vanquish is a comfortable, well rounded grip that I got along with, although I’m still a fan of a thinner 31mm diameter grip. I would love to see a push on version, as the push on ODI Longneck grips have become my go-to grip recently, and I think that would complement the vibration damping technology perfectly. More rubber makes for a more comfortable grip, and replacing the hard plastic sleeve with rubber accomplishes exactly that.

Innovation is hard to come by in grips, but ODI and D30 have accomplished it with their vibration damping rubber compound. The Vanquish grip isn’t revolutionary, but these incremental gains are sure to be appreciated by those who like a medium thickness grip with channels for your fingers. I can’t wait for this rubber technology to trickle into other grips from ODI, as the thickness of the Vanquish wasn’t for me. A thoughtful touch is the hardened plastic on the lower half of the grip end, which keeps the grip ends in good shape during a crash, while the soft rubber upper half does a good job of sticking to any wall you lean your bike against.

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