Let’s Talk About the $70 Bottle Cage
For this segment of our “Let’s Talk” series, we’re asking you to post your comments, opinions, and thoughts on the $70 Bottle Cage. Yes, most local bikes shops will carry a carbon bottle cage somewhere in the neighborhood of $70…what do you have to say about it?
As always, this “Let’s Talk” post will be built by our readers so be sure to jump in and voice your opinion in the comments section below. Have a look at theis short video to get you in the spirit and then let your comments fly.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkU1SbTxS44[/youtube]
Im thankful for the article post.Really thank you! Will read on
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
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?
Isn’t that a little expensive?
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.
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.
$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 🙂
Steel is real. I use aluminum cages on my steel Surly. They work great.
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.
If people would just stop drinking while on their bikes, they could save the weight of the rack, the bottle, and the water.
I owned bike shops for years. I get it, I really do. And I also know where most of the profit margin is in a bike shop (high end aftermarket stuff like this). And if you have the money (and you earned it legit 🙂 ) then I guess why not. Although when I say that my conscious tugs at me and says I know a lot of places where that money could make a real difference…. but I digress.
What is laughable to me though ( and I know I sound like a jerk for saying it but) is that the majority of people that walked in to my shops that could afford a bottle cage that weighs 30 grams, where wearing 20 POUNDS of fat around their waist. If you want to make a difference on the weight that is on your two little skinny tires you might want to focus on what you eat FIRST.
Ride on.
I know the Arundel guys. Great product, even better guys. Is the product for everyone, NO? Is it for the competition-minded expert or professional, YES! We could all ride Huffys and shop at Wal Mart, but some people reach for something better and strive to achieve it. I am glad they are out there.
I think it depends on if you consider your bike a “Honda Accord” or a “Lamborghini Gallardo.” Utility or Exotic? If you want a completely tricked out bike, and spend $8,000 on a Venge or a custom Guru/Alchemy/Kirklee, why try to save $50 on the bottle cages? You gotta go for the tricked out Arundel Cages!!
I see the same thing happen with wheel sets with racers. They go out and buy a $3000 pair of Zipps, but then don’t want to spend more than $25 on tubular tires!
I bought a cheap carbon bottle cage from eBay and it does the job very well for the $12 I paid.
Same with me. My $10 ebay cage works great.
What I do not understand is that a 16 fl oz water bottle (which is small), holds about 480 grams of water. According to a few sites, a carbon (or titanium) water bottle cage weighs about 30 g and a steel one weighs about 50 grams. While that is a 66% difference, it is only 6% or 10% of the weight of the (small) water bottle filled, That is relatively small. You are better saving 20 grams somewhere else
I think once you have trimmed every other piece of weight off your bike and body then you can do the $70 cage… but i feel it should be one of the last, if not the very last, things that’s upgraded. There are so many other upgrades that can be done that will actually make you faster or make the bike work better. If you are a Pro, it’s prob worth it…. if you are loaded and can spend whatever you want on bike gear, it’s worth it. The common man should pass though!
You ever see the lures in the fishing section of a sporting shop? They are better at catching fishermen than fish…