Grip Tape on Trial: Seven Budget Sheets vs. the Great British Puddle

Griptape is the great divider of the skate world. Spend a tenner on Jessup and nobody blinks. Spend £2.49 on a no-name sheet from a market stall and suddenly you're the punchline of every session. But does the pricey stuff actually grip harder, or are we all just paying for a logo?

We bought seven sheets — from a £1.99 mystery tape at a discount shop to proper shop-brand staples — stuck them to identical decks, and skated them into the ground. Rain included. Obviously. This is Britain.

The Testing Method (Such As It Was)

Each tape got three weeks of real-world abuse: street spots, a concrete park, one ill-advised wet session at a car park in November. We scored grip out of ten, tracked how quickly the surface went that sad dishwater grey, and tested tear resistance by doing the one thing you shouldn't do — kickflipping until the tail shredded.

Fair warning: this is not lab science. This is skate journalism. Our lab was a Sainsbury's car park and our instruments were our feet.

The Contenders

The £1.99 Mystery Sheet — The packaging was entirely in a language none of us could identify. The adhesive gave up before the first ollie. By day four the whole sheet peeled off like a sunburnt back. Verdict: bin it. Actually bin it at the shop, before you leave.

The Poundland Special — Genuinely shocking how much grip this had... for about ninety minutes. Then the grit flattened faster than a cheap pillow. Fine for a first board you'll outgrow in a month. Nothing more.

The Supermarket-Adjacent Generic — Sold under about fourteen different brand names depending on which marketplace you're browsing. Grip was passable, longevity was not. It greyed out in ten days flat, like it had been pre-aged for your convenience.

The Online Bulk Twin-Pack — £6 for two. Individually, they're about as grippy as a wet flannel. The adhesive, however, was excellent — which tells you where the money goes. Verdict: great glue, hopeless grit.

The Skate Shop Own-Brand — This is where things turn. Proper silicon carbide grit, aggressive adhesive, and it held its bite through two proper wet sessions. At £7-8 it undercuts the big names and does 90% of the job. Our value pick.

Jessup Original — The control. Reliable, consistent, the tape your mate with the good pop has always used. Not the grippiest on test, but it fades gracefully and never peels at the nose. A dependable marriage.

Mob / Grizzly-tier Premium — The grippiest thing we tested by a distance, with that laser-cut graphic nose you'll destroy in a fortnight anyway. You're paying extra for grip you'll rarely need and branding everyone can see. Nice. Not necessary.

What Actually Matters on Wet UK Streets

Here's the thing nobody tells you: in Britain, griptape dies of water damage before it dies of wear. Rain gets under the edges, the adhesive lets go, and suddenly you've got a flapping corner at the nose that catches every single time.

So the real buyer's guide, condensed:

• Adhesive beats grit. A mid-grit tape with killer glue outlasts a razor-sharp tape that peels. Prioritise the bond.
• Cut, don't tear. Take the two minutes to trim your sheet properly. Torn edges are the number one entry point for water.
• Grip too aggressive is a lie. The ultra-coarse stuff eats shoes and shins and offers marginal real-world benefit. Your board floats on your feet more than you think.
• Grey is inevitable. Any tape goes grey. The question is how fast. If it's lost its bite in a fortnight, it was never good tape.

The Bottom Line

The £1.99 mystery sheet belongs in a landfill. The Poundland tape belongs on a five-year-old's Christmas board. The bulk twin-pack belongs in the bin. Everything from the £7 shop own-brand upward is genuinely fine, and the differences beyond that point are about feel and fashion, not function.

Save your money for the deck underneath. Or, more realistically, for the chips afterwards.