Bike Water Bottles & Bike Cages
Bikes are meant
to be used.
Drinking (water) and riding is a time-honored tradition. Cyclists learned the value of remaining hydrated long before football players started dabbling with Gatorade. At first, the cages resided on the handlebars, then migrated to the downtube and then to the seat tube. Metal bottles, probably both aluminum and enameled steel, were topped with a cork, and the bottle was held in place with a cage clamp. World War II helped usher in plastic bottles, but they didn’t see widespread use until the 1960s. Then, water bottle use exploded. Using plastics as a cage material didn’t start showing up until the 1980s. Today, the choices on both fronts are nearly limitless.
Bike Water Bottles
There are arguments over who makes the best bike water bottle and what makes it so. But really, most are quite good. There’s no difference between a road and a mountain bike water bottle; they’re interchangeable. What matters is how much liquid a bottle holds, how the nozzle works, and whether it’s insulated or not. Some prefer clear, so they can see how much is left; some prefer opaque, so they don’t know how much is left.
Actually, what matters most these days, is the graphic design screened onto the bottle. Kidding! Sort of. With so many bikes finished black, your water bottle game is how you can separate your bike from the pack. Don’t drink the Haterade; enjoy the variety. Clean them well, and recycle when they start to get gross.
Bottle Cages
Chromed steel with a plastic gripper was the basic design for years. Then Blackburn and American Classic upped the design game with aluminum cages, then they were passed by companies like King Cage, which worked in titanium, and Arundel, who worked in carbon fiber. These days carbon fiber and titanium are used for some of the strongest and lightest bottle cages available, though you can still find cages in pretty much all the other materials. Big manufacturers like Specialized make lots of designs out of plastic and carbon, with some making room for tools.
