What’s To Say About a Lowly Cycling Water Bottle? Plenty!

The humble cycling water bottle may not seem worthy of much discussion, but I did dig up some interesting information. From the primitive (Kevin from About.com says that it’s better to not share your cycling water bottle due to germs) to the technical (how about a summary of some wind tunnel tests done on riding with or without a water bottle?), there’s plenty to write about.

It all started when my receptionist asked me if I’d gotten my lazy butt moving on my website lately. I whined a bit (without conviction) about a scarcity of new subject material.

"How about writing about cycling water bottles?”, she chirped cheerfully.

“How about- that’s a dumb idea, I couldn’t find enough information for more than a paragraph?”, I groused silently. So to prove her wrong I started researching the lowly cycling water bottle.

Well, I hope I can fit all the amusing cycling water bottle stuff I found onto a single page.

Wanting to lift my sagging spirits, I started with Kevin from About.com. Man, Kevin’s got outstanding placement in the search engine wars so he must be at the pinnacle of cycling knowledge. I’ll give you a short summary of that knowledge.

Warning, Warning- important water bottle info about to be dispensed. Brace your sorry gluts for a fountain of knowledge, a proverbial cornocopia of insight.

Nothing there tooted my whistle. The mighty Kevin had stuck out! So I kept looking.

Come On Ron, Give Us Some Juicy Stuff!

OK, here we go with a wind tunnel study done by the guys at profile-design.com. Apparently John had been pontificating regarding the aerodynamics of the water bottle. He’d expressed his unsubstantiated opinion on cycling forums, apparently believing that a water bottle contributed to increased drag. Well, duh! Of course it'd increase wind resistance.

Well, not duh!

John, having access to a wind tunnel to the tune of $500 per hour, did some testing and the cycling world was rocked to the core.

Using the lowly, round conventional water bottle (more on unconventional bottles later), he found that when the bottle was mounted to the down tube the wind resistance was actually reduced. Likewise, when mounted to the seat tube the wind resistance was also reduced. When bottles were mounted to both the tubes at the same time, resistance was minimally increased.

Much like when time runs out on your quarter at the parking meter, John’s five hundred dollar bill was consumed before he could do more testing on alternative cycling water bottle positions. The same holds true regarding different water bottle shapes.

If you want to read more, go to the cycling water bottle study. But hurry back, you’ll be astounded to read how much some riders are paying per pound to save weight.

I’ll Bid $736 Per Pound

I did the math for you, but you can check my figures. A four dollar Blackburn cage weighs 55 grams. A fifty dollar Profile Karbon Kage (spelled with a ‘K’, to add value) is 29 grams.

The savings in weight is .91 ounce. If we round that up to one ounce and multiply the additional cost of 46 bucks by 16 to get a ‘poundage’ weight, it comes to $736 per pound saved.

So you save almost an ounce and spend an additional $46 on a high tech Karbon Kage.

Let me point out that you can practically lose an ounce by farting. Mind you, some dry farts won’t qualify. Additionally, if your cycling shorts capture the fart products there may be no net loss whatsoever. For predictable weight savings, forego the farting strategy and get the Karbon Kage.

Then again, pay yourself $736 to quit eating donuts.

NEWSFLASH- This just in from the product description of the Karbon Kage. "Black gloss carbon fiber cage holds water bottle effortlessly". No huffing and puffing for that kage.

Give Me Some Features

Here’s where I was deceived. This is why I didn't want to write about cycling water bottles. I thought that a page on cycling water bottles would have to be full of great features.

Such as the ‘wide mouthed’ water bottle, for ease of ice cube loading.

Or the ‘screw-on lid’ versus the ‘snap-on lid’ debate so often overheard in the cycling store. On this issue I have to say that the security of the screw-on lid lets me pull open the mouthpiece with as much aggression as I’d like to, without the fear of pulling the entire lid off.

Allows me to sleep better at night. No more cycling water bottle nightmares.

That’s about it for features. It would have been a short page indeed if I hadn’t discovered the other nonsense I’ve included above.

Aerodynamic Water Bottle

For your pleasure I’ve included the Arundel Chrono Aero carbon cage and bottle. Apparently this is a contemporary version of the Campy bottle and cage of old.

These guys thought outside the box and realized that water bottles didn’t have to be round.

They tried something similar with the concept of the wheel but it never caught on.

For Cheapskates Only

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