When the Tour Passed Near Home: AMS Bar Tape with Caja Rural
Some race days feel different.
The third stage of the 2026 Tour de France started in Granollers, very close to our headquarters near Barcelona. For AMS, this was not just another day of watching the biggest race in cycling pass through Catalonia.
This time, our bar tape was in the race.
Caja Rural-Seguros RGA is racing with AMS bar tape as official supplier for the 2026 and 2027 seasons. Seeing the team line up at the Tour de France, so close to home, with AMS Sterrato and AMS Tessel on their bikes, was one of those moments where product development becomes very real.
A Tour de France stage, a few kilometres from home
The Tour is always special. But when it starts almost in your backyard, it becomes personal.
Granollers is part of the same cycling territory where we ride, test, design, discuss products, and make decisions. It is close to the roads, climbs, shops, clubs, and riders that have shaped the way we understand cycling from Barcelona.
So when Caja Rural rolled out for stage three with AMS bar tape, it was more than visibility. It was a connection between where we come from and where we want AMS to go.
Caja Rural, Molenaar, and a special bike for the mountains jersey
One of the strongest images from the day was Alex Molenaar in the mountains leader jersey, with a special white bike decorated with the classic red dots of the classification.
On that bike: the new AMS Tessel Bar Tape in white.
Tessel is our new performance road and all-road bar tape, launching before the end of the 2026 Tour de France. It has already been used for months by Caja Rural-Seguros RGA and L39ion of Los Angeles, helping us validate the product before making it available to riders.
That is exactly how we like to develop products: not only in drawings, not only in prototypes, not only in controlled testing, but also in real racing environments with riders and mechanics who need things to work.
Sterrato and Tessel: two different answers for performance cycling
Caja Rural is using both AMS Sterrato and AMS Tessel bar tape.
AMS Sterrato is our premium road and gravel bar tape, developed for grip, comfort, control, and confidence across long rides, rough roads, gravel, and mixed surfaces. It has a secure hand feel, a comfortable level of damping, and a construction that mechanics appreciate because it wraps cleanly and reliably.
AMS Tessel is our new performance road and all-road platform. It has a more technical, structured surface and a denser, more precise feel at the bar. It is designed for riders who want control, feedback, and a cleaner race-oriented sensation without giving up comfort.
They are not one old bar tape and one new one. They are two different tools.
Sterrato is the trusted option for riders who want comfort, grip, and versatility across imperfect roads and gravel. Tessel is the sharper, more technical option for road, all-road, and racing conditions where hand feel and control matter at high speed.
Why pro racing matters for bar tape
Bar tape is easy to underestimate.
It is not the frame. It is not the wheels. It is not the groupset.
But it is one of the main contact points between rider and bike. Your hands are there for hours. They control braking, shifting, steering, sprinting, descending, climbing out of the saddle, and staying calm when the pace goes up.
For pro teams, bar tape has to do several things at once:
- provide grip in changing conditions
- stay comfortable over long stages
- wrap cleanly and consistently for mechanics
- look good on the bike
- survive repeated use, cleaning, travel, and race stress
- give riders a secure and familiar feel at the cockpit
That is why working with teams like Caja Rural matters to us.
It gives us feedback from the highest level of the sport, but also from the people who live with the product every day: riders, mechanics, staff, and product managers. The Tour de France simply makes that work more visible.
Designed in Barcelona. Tested in the race.
AMS started in mountain biking, but our obsession has always been bigger than one discipline.
We care about contact points. We care about protection. We care about how a bike feels when you actually ride it hard.
That is why bar tape and grips are now a central part of the AMS project. Whether it is a mountain bike grip or a road bar tape, the question is similar:
What does the rider feel at the point of contact?
Grip. Comfort. Control. Confidence. Texture. Damping. Precision. Durability. Style.
Those are not abstract words when the bike is on the start line of the Tour de France.
They are the details that decide whether a product disappears under the rider’s hands in the best possible way.
A small moment, a big signal
Seeing Caja Rural at the Tour de France with AMS bar tape, starting from Granollers, was a proud moment for us.
Not because one video or one stage changes everything.
But because it shows the direction we are taking.
AMS is bringing its product mindset, design language, and experience in rider contact points into performance road and gravel. Sterrato is already proving itself. Tessel is about to launch. And both are being used where cycling is most visible, most demanding, and most real.
Close to home. At the Tour. Under the hands of pro riders.
That feels like a good place to keep building.
Discover AMS bar tapes:
https://www.allmountainstyle.com/collections/ams-bar-tape
