HamboneSlim

crackly


crumbly

not even Duct Tape can help this one.

Water bottle was code 2 HDPE, good manufacturer. What made it get brittle & fail? Too much sunshine?

It usually rides on the back:



Nalgene has a pretty transparent blue widemouth made from Eastman Triton plastic. Might this last longer? The list price is $11.50, I'd like to be sure it will last first.

lotek 

I think a combination of the sun and the way you're carrying it.
Get a good clamp on water bottle cage and that will solve one problem.
The other thing I'd suggest is get a bike specific water bottle. I would imagine the
plastic formulation is designed with lots of exposure to the sun in mind.
Water bottles are cheap, even the insulated ones like Polar, buy a few and
rotate them so you aren't using the same one day in and day out.

marty

prettyshady

I think the way the bottle is carried is the problem. A regular bottle holder cradles the bottle, and is also more pratical to use to!

BLUMEANIE

Good thing your watter bottle wasn't carbon, it could have exploded while you were drinking out of it.

HamboneSlim

I found the tech support email addy for Nalgene, we'll soon get to the bottom of this I'm sure.

BLUMEANIE

I've had Nalgene bottles get brittle and crack if I put then on the bottom rack in the dishwasher near the heat but I've never seen one crumble like that.
Originally was it one of the hard bottles or a softer more squeezable plastic?

HamboneSlim

I think there's room on the bar stem for a water bottle cage. That'll be better, plus it will free up the bike rack for cheese and sausages.

HamboneSlim

The HDPE plastic is pretty soft and squeezable. This one has only carried water and iced coffee, never anything hot IIRC.

Allan Pollock

catastrophic? really.

BlankCrows

Look at that plastic. It is thin-walled and surely not designed to be carried in a rack like that. Don't blame the company that made it.

Good looking Peugeot. Is that a UO-8? The blue rear deflecdtor looks sharp on it.

danarnold

Whatever you do, don't put a water bottle cage on the down tube. That's where the doughnuts go.

HamboneSlim

Yes. From Wikipedia:

"A catastrophic failure is a sudden and total failure of some system from which recovery is impossible.

The term is most commonly used for structural failues, but has often been extended to many other disciplines where total and irrecoverable loss occurs."

So not a catastrophy in that no puppies or kittens were harmed, but rather, a catastrophic structural failure of the plastic bottle.

HamboneSlim

Most likely will be replaced with another Nalgene product, pending tech supports recommendations.

Yes, a '74 UO-8. The reflector is a Stimsonite highway marker.

Oregon Southpaw

The waterbottle maintains its integrity.

Or it doesn't.

GV27

Huh, weird. I've got milky plastic Nalgene bottles that are a decade or more old and have been exposed to plenty of sun over the years - hanging from a pack for high altitude mountaineering (where the sun is pretty intense). Never had one do anything like that. I even freeze them and have them get all puffed out from the expanded water. Weird. They go through the washer every once in a while (rarely actually, but they have) and I use a 48oz'er that I poor boiling water into regularly for brewing coffee while camping. They stand up quite well to heavy-duty use/abuse. Some of them have tumbled good distances down mountains too. Like I said, weird.

Let us know what they say - the I'm a pretty dedicated user of the milky Nalgene's

Oh yeah, like your bike too!

David Newton

Good thing you weren't carrying nitro-glycerine, it really could have been catastrophic!

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Better that it broke now and you are being forced to replace it rather than you drink out of such a heavily worn plastic container.


You've inbibed enough of the plastic container that it finally cracked from lack of material to hold it up

roccobike

Just replace it with an aluminum bottle. It'll never break. You can barely get any water out of it due to suction, but they don't break.

Chombi

Heat/dry air most likely drove out the plasticizers (outgassing) from that bottle and cause it to crumble.
Had that happen to me with a pair of ski boots that I foolishly stored in my brother's very hot (in summer) and very dry (in winter) garage attic. I had him send it to me after four years in that garage attic in Wisconsin to California. Looked perfect when I got it, but totally fell to pieces just like your bottle, once I started to buckle it up on the ski hill....."Store in cool dark place" suddenly made sense to me then.

Chombi
84 Peugeot PSV
85(?) Vitus Carbone 7 Plus

cudak888 

Next time, get a waterbottle that is vertically stiff, yet laterally compliant.

(Sorry, I had to say it).

-Kurt

Chombi

Thought about this a little more and I think that because Nalgene products do use less or a minimal of pasticizers and other chemicals on their bottles to avoid leaching into the bottles contents in certain conditions (IIRC), their bottles might be more prone to UV/heat breakdown.

Chombi
84 Peugeot PSV
85(?) Vitus Carbone 7 Plus

funrover 

Never seen a nalgene crack

Amani576

Literally made me LOL
Thanks, Kurt.
-Gene-

lotek 

you forgot torsionally rigid.

HamboneSlim

Heard back from Susan at Nalgene Tech Command. She asked if the bottle had markings indicating UV inhibitors, which it did not, and the date of the bottle, which appears to be stamped '93. And she offered to send me a new bottle.

A+ to Nalgene for good customer support. Took the time to tell me why the bottle failed (extended UV exposure over a long period of time) and offered to replace the product.

And Marty wins the old crumbly bottle for correctly guessing the cause of failure.