up-front bottle mounts?
I currently have a Torhans aero bottle between my aerobars. I hate it. So looking for another solution.
I also have a Profile Design bottle, and it's ok, but with any bouncing around when the bottle is at all full, stuff splashes out. So, I am considering just a plain old water bottle mount for between my bars... like the profile design one, or the x-lab mount.
Talk to me about these - do you have one, do you like it? My race is Eagleman, so I'll carry all of my drink on board... two in the back, one in front and an extra one on the down tube since it is such a hot race.
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Upfront I roll with a Speedfil A2 that sits on top of the Speedfil A2 Stem Cap Mount with an XLab Torpedo cage. Very happy with the setup.
--Larry
Thanks -
+1 on Larry's/John's setup. After John posted photo's in another thread, and Larry posted the speedfil bracket info, I followed suit and I like it very much. I will say that drinking from the straw does take some getting used to, it leaves me a little short of breath from the suction effort :-)
Kortney,
1. What issues are you having with the Torhans that you hate it? I made a couple of modifications to it and it works great.
2. Why the need to carry all those bottles on your bike when you have aid stations every 10-12 miles?
And yes, I also took the stupid bite valve off and cut my straw pretty short. Also, if mine isn't completely filled to the top, I crack open the filler cap just a hair to let air in when I suck to drink.
I rode with just a mount for a long time until I started running into very poor water bottles at the races I was doing. The quality of the bottles was such that they were already small for a bike mount, but also were the cheapest things possible so they deformed as you tried to drink from them. Perhaps obviously, that won't stay in your normal front mount very well. OTOH, you can take those crappy water bottles and squeeze them into the Speedfil A2 like you would any of the traditional aero drinks. The good news, though, is that the Speedfil doesn't leak.
I like the bite valve. It's all a matter of taste and how exactly the geometry of your front end is, as to how short you can get the straw and whether you want to use the bite valve. I don't have any experience without it, but I worry about spilling.
I race with two bottles, the speedfil and a downtube bottle. Most of the time, only one bottle would be perfectly fine, but I like the insurance of having a second. I miss or drop a bottle maybe one out of 5-6 times and the insurance bottle means I don't have to worry about it. Of course for hot races, two bottles is just a good idea on principle, even for 30-45 min gaps.
This is something I think about. I will be carrying four bottles during the upcoming Patriot Half because the on course nutrition is Hammer Heed and I will not touch it. The only way I can meet my nutritional needs is to carry 4 bottles. Is there another way that I am missing? I would love to know the answer and save the weight.
--Larry
Maybe I am doing something wrong... I can't refill it without it overflowing because the inner baffle doesn't allow the liquid to drain through. I suppose I could make some sort of mod to help with that. That's really it. What mods did you make to it to work for you?
Ah. Well, Eagleman doesn't serve Ironman Perform on course... they serve Gatorade Endurance since they had an existing contract with Gatorade when WTC started using Ironman Perform. I'm used to the Perform, so don't really want to switch over. So that's why I carry all of that on board. It's not a big deal to carry on board since I have the space for it, so I'd rather not try to switch to the Gatorade.
Anyway, great responses from all. Bob - if you can tell me what you did to your Torhans to make it a little bit more functional, I'd love to hear. I'll also check out the Speedfil in the meantime.
Kortney,
This is what I did to the Torhans...
1. Throw out the inner baffle. No need to use it once you follow the other steps.
2. Buy a 2-pack of Cee Gees Jetstream Splash Filters: https://www.ceegees.com/product/?product_id=151
3. Jam one of the aforementioned splash filters in the Torhans bottle. Push it down so there's about an inch or so between the filter and the lid. The splash filter is very porous and drains into the bottle almost immediately.
4. It will not overflow when refilling and that filter nearly eliminates splashing.
5. The aero mast holding the straw in place has a tendency to come loose. You can buy little O-rings that fit over the little plastic part the aero mast inserts into OR you can tape it down.
Have you thought of using a concentrated bottle (or two) of Perform similar to what others do with Infinit? That way you only need to chase the Perform concentrate with water. Think about it this way. 5 full bottles is about 120 ounces of fluid... or roughly a gallon. A gallon of water weighs over 8 pounds. Add the weight of the bottles and you're carrying over 10 pounds. That's like 60% of the weight of my bike. We spend thousands of dollars on carbon this and carbon that to make our bikes lighter and more aero and then we add 10 pounds of water bottles that weigh the bike down and cause a lot of aero drag.
Just sayin'.
I had a torhans which I liked until the bracket broke. Then I got a speedfil A2. To fill the torhans I cut out one of the leaflets of the inner baffle. Made the filling faster and still didn't splash (too much). This is how I have the speedfil mounted now. Rock solid on my recent 90k RR and worked really well, though I made the straw a bit too short. The computer is right in front of my face in aero.
Sucking on straws and jury rigging with straps and zip ties is way too much work for me. In the picture below, I've got a standard bottle cage attached to the king cage which replaces my stem cap. If you *must* use the Speedfil, there's room for that, but I've found it easier to just deal with a bottle. The little round thick just in front of that is where I have my Joule now. It's a profile design gizmo meant to hold computers onto aero bars. Here are links:
>King Cage<</a> - It's called "top Cage Mount" $8
>Profile Design UCM<</a> Universal Computer Mount XL $11
As to the nitty gritty of how it all works for me, for an HIM, I just carry along two bottle of my standard Infinit mix, no concentrating. That's 500 calories right there. At an aid station, I grab a water bottle, spray myself with it if needed, drink if needed, then toss. Then grab whatever sports drink they're serving, drink about 8 ounces, and toss it. That usually gets me to 650 cal, which is all I need. All while moving right along. No need to look down to fill a container and risk hitting another competitor or falling off my bike. You';re paying $$ for the convenience of aid stations, take advantage of it, and minimize the things you need to think about.
I should add that the stem mount doesn't work on my bike- there is nothing to screw the bolt into? Hence the zip ties.
Bob, thanks for posting your mods to the Torhans. I will try that... sounds like you fixed exactly what I hate about the bottle.
And fair point on carrying all of the liquid. I may try that on my RR ride next weekend - the concentrated bottle. I have to think about how that would work... so basically, if I mixed one bottle of Perform concentrate, then every time I refilled the up-front bottle with water, I could squirt some of the concentrate in there? Sounds like a nice, simple solution, and I do like the idea of carrying less.