Comments on: Let’s Talk About the $70 Bottle Cage

By: luv2bike

luv2bike — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 20:22:00 +0000

I have had about 5 bottles ejected during different rides. One cost me having my rear wheel rebuilt $100. One almost cost a friend to crash(Bottle under front wheel is an instant brake). One cost me to get dehydrated! Bottle flew out and I didn’t notice both during races. This happened twice. One cost me riding with Lance. 5 miles into the Ride for Roses I was riding behind lance and a friend. Yes I took a picture! Anyways, I hit a cattle card and both bottles were ejected. (they were two camel backs $12each) Lance cruises about about 18mph which is a nice pace. After 25 miles I was dehydrated. I slowed and limped into the next rest stop. For me carbon is not about the weight it’s about holding its shape. Plastic flexes over time and metal bends and finally breaks. My carbon cages still hold my bottles snug after 2 years. I purchased the cages at the Mellow Johnny’s November bike sale for about $40 a piece.

Michael

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 18:41:00 +0000

If it looks nice why not? It is fashion and funtion. Fashion is never cheap and yes a nice water bottle cage is slimming and a lady catcher. They see that on your bike and it is take me home now. If you have happy thoughts when you ride great. It’s not like crack and ruin your life or purses that ar $500 for what?

By: Myron

Myron — Sun, 27 May 2012 00:16:00 +0000

Isn’t that a little expensive?

By: Roger

Roger — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:43:00 +0000

Same with me. My $10 ebay cage works great.

By: JJ

JJ — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:42:00 +0000

I agree and am not sold on the high priced carbon bottle cage. I realize that we pay thousands of dollars on our road bikes, but that does not justify spending way more money than we need to in order to have a cage that does not improve performance at all. It’s another one of those marketing tactics and from some of the comments here it looks like it’s working for them.

By: Shawn McAfee

Shawn McAfee — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:11:00 +0000

Great topic Darryl. Even in mountain biking we see a lot of people worrying about the weight of their bike. I think it’s ridiculous, give me a couple of the $3.99 bottle cages and I will gladly take the extra weight.

My personal opinion is that the more the bike weighs, the better the training and more calories I burn… thus reducing my overall weight of rider + bike.

I agree with what @twitter-105264247:disqus said. If you’re really concerned with optimizing your performance on the bike – so much that you will pay $70 for a water bottle cage – then I expect you to race the pro category and weigh 140 pounds. If you don’t then I am glad to take donations for of your excess income.

By: Si

Si — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:04:00 +0000

$70 on a cage, I would rather invest the money saved and travel to ride different trails, that would have more mental and physical benefit for my riding, the minor weight loss…negligible.
And for the record I ride with a stainless steel hip flask cage

By: Phoenix

Phoenix — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Steel is real. I use aluminum cages on my steel Surly. They work great.

By: Krissy Nelson

Krissy Nelson — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:13:00 +0000

I totally agree with the fact that the $70 carbon cage isn’t going to make any of us go faster. That being said, I just bought carbon cages for my new bike…. The new bike is my dream machine and let’s face it, cost a pretty penny (lots of ‘em!) I felt for the sake of my bike, I couldn’t keep the plain aluminum cages that it came with, so I upgraded purly for aesthetics reasons. Although my cages weren’t $70 (they were closer to $45), my justification for the purchase was that I wouldn’t put Walmart hub caps on my new sports car, so I didn’t want to keep the boring cages on my super fast new dream machine. Not a necessity for functionality of the bike, but more of a personal perference.

By: Chris Baskind

Chris Baskind — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:05:00 +0000

If people would just stop drinking while on their bikes, they could save the weight of the rack, the bottle, and the water.