Bottle placement on road bike without aero bars?
The subject line pretty much says it all. I ride a normal road bike (no aero bar extensions). Prefer to carry two bottles, which are right now on the seat tube and down tube. Was wondering if there are other, cleaner set ups that folks use, e.g. one (or two?) behind the saddle and the other on either the seat or down tube, or one on the handlebar with one of those aero mounts made for road bikes? Granted, my next race is still 11 weeks out, but I like to visualize... thanks!
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Comments
When roadie, keep it 'normal'.
Your bottles are in the right place.
Do NOT put a behind the seat rack unless you plan on getting spit on (not by me, per se)
if you need a third bottle, carry it in your middle pocket on the back of your jersey.
IMO, even if you're racing in a tri on a traditional road setup, keep it as a road setup. I don't see any huge benefit to bottle placement changes on a road bike. I could see putting shorty's (very short aerobars that allow you to lay on the bars) on the bike more than worrying about bottle placement. Just continue working on the engine and racing smart. Then, when/if you get a tri bike, that's when you can play around with all those little details that probably don't mean any more to our racing than a good breakfast and great execution do.
I only use behind-the-seat when I want to carry four bottles (80+ miles no stops in the summer)
It's not as natural as a down-tube bottle; the down-tube is my primary and I swap in the others as I empty each bottle on the down-tube.
I really dislike having heavy things in my jersey, but I've seen the bottle-in-jersey approach.
I don't like carrying bottles in the small of my back either. This set up equals 4 not the 2. What cha think?