In the old Jeep, I had velcro grab handles to help get in the front/back seats. They worked, but it seemed like they were always in the way. Turn your head to look out the window and … WHACK … your face is sitting against the grab handle. Blecch.

I’d seen a lot of discussion about various grab handles on the Jeep forums I lurk on, and I noticed a new design I hadn’t seen before. This was not a velcro strap on the roll cage, but instead a steel loop mounted up front, toward the A-pillar. Very cool.

Pretty quickly, I ordered up a set of them from Welcome Distributing. After a couple of really cool emails with the CEO, Ken Welke, I had a set on the way. A few days later, I had ’em in hand.

Essentially, they mount to a couple of pre-existing bolt points in the roll cage, using machined spacers to mount the grab bars out where you can get to them. And man, are they sturdy. I don’t exactly blow away in a small breeze, and they seemed to be able to stand up to me using them with no flexing or any feel of them giving way. That’s a pretty cool thing.

And now that I’ve got ’em place, I’m kinda hankering for a set for the rear — Welcome Distributing has a set specific for the rear seat of the two-door Wranglers. Now, I don’t expect to have a lot of folks in the back seat… mostly because I’m not sure there’ll be a back set in there most of the time. However, those grab bars for the back look like they’d make terrific mount points for cameras, GPS devices, and anything else that could be mounted with a nice grip mount. I like things having multiple uses!

So, in the final analysis, these things are dynamite. They’re sturdy, easy to install — took me about thirty minutes — and seem like they’ll be useful for far more than just getting in and out of the Jeep. Color me sold!