Rick

158 oz: The 18 oz Klean Kanteen bottle is for my electrolytes (Tang&Salt mixture). The Two 1.5 liter Smart water bottles are refills for the One Bottle Hydration setup. The feed bag attached to the handlebar, stem and fork is made by Rockgeist and it is called the Honeypot. It Is holding a Nalgene 48oz bottle. I was not happy with water packs and the idea of cleaning them on a trip away from home annoyed me. The setup from One Bottle Hydration Is less complicated to clean. I ordered the kit for the large wide mouth bottles. I cut off the right angle bite valve setup and put the bite valve directly on the tube. This works if you order the silicone tube. I didn't like their bite valve, so I took the wide mouth bite valve off of my Platypus hydration bladder and put it over the end of the silicone tube. So I have a wide mouth bottle that can hold over 50 oz with a custom lid that holds a long straw with a bite valve on one end.

Tourist in MSN

A few months ago on a different forum, someone had an extra big cage like the ones you have. And they had a big metal bottle in one. And crashed. After the crash, their bottle was no longer centered in the bike because the frame tubing was slightly deformed at the bottle cage bolt locations. If your cage is weak enough to bend in that scenario, great. But if your cage is really solidly built, don't crash if there is any chance that your cage is stronger than your frame tubing at the bolt holes.

***

I use the one liter bottles from Smart Water or Life WTR (in Canada, Life Water). They fit normal cages.




But I use different lids in those disposable bottles that I can flip the top open to avoid having to unscrew the bottle to drink from it.

Or, if I think I do not need that much voume of water, I use some conventional bike bottles, like below. These ones fill easier with the wide mouth. The one under the downtube is shorter than the other two due to the bike geometry and front fender.



On my last tour, the shorter bottle in the second photo was short enough to get water from a sink in a national park, but the bigger bottles were too tall to fill in a sink.

Rick

Tourist in MSN: The two cages in the main triangle are the Velo Orange Mojave. The 1.5 liter water bottles don't fit tight in these cages. The cages are designed for 3.5" bottles. I am considering some kind of strap to keep them from bouncing around. I had to put another piece of hardware between the cage and seat tube to adjust the height of the cage low enough to put the 1.5 liter bottle in. I live in the high desert and have found that more water is needed.

I have never heard of the kind of damage you speak of. By the way what model of the brooks seat are you using with the springs.

veganbikes

That bike is ticking a lot of boxes for me!

• Co-Motion
• Belt drive
• Crazy Bars with Ergon GC1s
• Arkel bag
• Tubus Racks
• Cambium
• King Cage

Also like the hydration solution.

Tourist in MSN

Brooks Conquest. Went out of production over a decade ago. Then came back into production for a few years, I think it is out of production again. No saddle bag loops on it, shape of saddle is almost exactly the same as a Brooks Pro.

Another option, the Brooks Flyer has same type of springs, the saddle shape is the same as a B17. That is a bit wider and a bit flater at the back than the Conquest or Pro.

I like the Conquest or Pro shape better for when I am using the drops on the drop bars, when I am in the drops the Flyer or B17 does not fit me right.

Since you have flat bars, not drops, the Flyer might work well for you if you want springs.

Rick

veganbikes: I also have a set of front and rear panniers by arkel. That single bag is called the bug. It converts to a backpack. I'm waiting for a computer part to remount my padrone computer and next month I will order a handlebar headlight mount so I can put my Edelux II back on. I chose the Rockgeist Honeypot because it is 10" high on the inside. The Nalgene 48 oz lightweight version is 11 1/4" tall. I have the magnet clip and nothing covering the bite valve, so almost no distraction when drinking.

base2 

3 & 4 liter frame mounted water tanks.

140 ounces, mounted low and centerally located.
A life saver for remote travel in hot & dry desert climes.

Recommended.

Rick

​​​​​​​

I am sitting up a few inches higher than you so the wider seat will probably work. I have an equally wide Cambium on it now. I read about the man denting the tube and that looks like a rare case incident. I don't ride the dirt intentionally and my handlebars are quite wide.

Aushiker

An option for carrying the 1.5-litre bottles is something similar to Topeaks Modula Cage XL. I have something similar, which, IIRC, came from BBB.

[

[utag=413859]base2 my solution for carrying extra water in the outback is Sea to Summit water bladders. It looks like they do not sell the ones I have but other brands do them as well. I find the ones with tie-down loops are the best. I have carried 35 litres at one time using the Ortlieb ones as shown below. I have now swapped them out for the Sea to Summit type of bladder

You can see the Ortlieb bladder (blue bag) on the back of my Salsa Mukluk, and the reason why I have gone over to bladders with tie-down options. Getting it to sit on the rack and stay there was a pain. My XL cage is visible on the down-tube.

base2 

Aushiker Yeah, I had one of those Topeak cages. Even had a bike specifically designed to allow room behind the seat tube to accommodate so that I could (theoretically) carry 4 on the frame. They kept breaking. So, I gave up on the idea and switched gears to what I think is a generally better solution. The CrankTank is Australian made for Australian needs. Combining it with a Revelate frame bag filled with a 3 liter water bladder gets up to 7 liters all inside the main triangle. This naturally leaves room elsewhere in the bike for lighter, less dense stuff. Or, thought of another way, your stuff isn't so much displaced by water needs. 1 or 2 bladders in the bottom of a pannier with clothes and bivvy or miscellaneous whatever on top will ride better than a whole pannier just for water.

You can see here the Topeak cage in the frame design below. What I want to do with the area now is a custom frame bag to fill that area. I think it would be great for stacking oat & granola bars and tubes of peanut butter or other such sundries.


35 liters is a lot of darn weight. I should hope to never need that much!

cyccommute 

Why are people so averse to the solution that has been around for more than 40 years now? Carrying water in the triangle? Where are you going to carry your other stuff. Slinging a bag over a rack? Good luck when you snag it on a branch or it falls off the bike and gets ripped open.

I know all the arguments of “a Camelbak is sweaty” but it’s not a sweaty to carry as all that. Packed with ice, it’s even a bit of a cooler on your bike and iced water is far better than tepid bottle water at both refreshing you and tasting better.

Additionally, the Camelbak takes up no room on the bike and provides space for carrying lots of stuff. My entire tool kit in in the bag.

TiHabanero

I made cages to hold two 64oz (about 1L) bottles and a 20oz bottle inside the main triangle. Also have a 24oz bottle in a cage mounted under the down tube for a total of 172oz mounted to the frame. I don't like bite valves and use the big containers to refill the small containers.
I have never seen bladders that have tabs for hold down straps. I really like that idea!

Rick

Aushiker: The Topeak Modula cage XL is to long for my frame. I had to use hardware to lower the cage on the seat tube so the bottle just fits. I am also looking for straps that I have seen to keep the bottles from bouncing around, since their diameter is less than the cage. The three plastic bottles carry around 4.5 liters. The metal bottle is around 18 oz and I can mix my Tang and salt in it. I remember the TV adds for Tang as a child. The drink of the astronauts. cheap electrolytes!

Tourist in MSN

64 oz is two quarts, or about 1.9 liters. Soda pop bottles of similar size are common in grocery stores in my area.

I am sure you know this. We all make mistakes in typing.

phughes

Thanks for posting that. I may look into it at some point. Usually it hasn't been an issue for me, but on my last tour, I ran into a couple days when I could not find water until I got to my destination. I stopped at one point at a church outside of what seemed like a ghost town, all empty buildings at an intersection, in Northern Indiana. The church ended up being one that was in the process of being converted into a house. The woman who owned it invited me in and she filled my bottles and gave me some sports drink mix she swore by. She had been a heavy equipment operator down south before moving back to Indiana. Great experience and the water was needed and much appreciated. The funny thing was, I rode about a mile after that, and a car stopped and the driver asked if I needed water. They lived up the road and told me I could stop by.

The stupid part of the story is when I left the campground in the morning, one I stayed at a couple of days dealing with a scratched cornea, I gave my 2 gallon water jug I bought at a store there to a campground worker. They had treated me so well while I was there, and he was working in the heat. I really didn't think I needed to lug about a gallon and a half of water along with my three water bottles. Yeah that was a bad decision, but then again, I wouldn't have stopped at the old church had I carried it, and that alone was a nice experience.

Of all places I never thought I would have issues getting water in a place like Indiana, but the far northern part is quite rural and places are far apart.

Tourist in MSN

If you mean a strap that goes up near the top of the bottle, I just use two sided velcro or sometimes instead use a hair elastic held to the frame tubing with velcro.

If you are looking for a way to make the bottle a larger diameter to fit more snuggly in the cage, I have no suggestion. I have done that on smaller bottles in smaller cages, but my solution would not work on your size bottles.

base2 

Ummm...
You are currently carrying water in the triangle.
Because sometimes people don't want their cargo human mounted.

TiHabanero

Tourist In MSN, I appreciate your observation. Indeed there is a typo as I was intending to reference each 64oz bottle, not the pair in total.
As an aside, I had originally intended the cages (really they are racks in function) to hold 1 gallon containers, but found the weight was too much for the design, but the 1/2 gallon containers are a perfect weight for the design.

Rick

​​​​​​​I was thinking of strapping them to the frame but your suggestion looks good also.

cyccommute 

That is a backup water bottle only and is often filled with Gatorade (or similar). It’s also not nearly enough water for more than about 20 miles of riding. That ride didn’t include a whole lot of convenience stores nor even places to get water that I wouldn’t have had to filter.

That is also only one configuration that I use for off-road touring. That small frame bag is capable of carrying my 1L teapot and not much else. This frame bag allowed me to ditch the fork leg bags which I find to be something of a hassle.



Don’t know why not. Cargo mounted on the human is sprung weight. Mounted to the frame and it is unsprung weight.

By the way, small frame bags and water bottles only work for larger bikes. A 19” mountain bike can use a fairly large frame bag. A 17” mountain bike has to use one that is much smaller. A 15” mountain bike has so small a frame that even the small sized frame pack I was using doesn’t fit all that well. The same would apply to that frame mounted water carrier above. It would only be useful for “average” sized mountain bikes.

Frankly, if I had to carry a whole lot of water, I rather drag a trailer around to do it…and I hate dragging trailers.

Aushiker

I was well into the tour by then so quite fit. I was also only doing around 75 km a day on outback roads, so it was manageable.

Aushiker

Which is what I did. I actually do not find the Extrawheel a hassle at all. I tend to forget it is there.

stevepusser

I would bet the "metal water bottle" had a lot to do with providing a fulcrum for the frame warping torque in the crash, not the cages.

cyccommute 

…until you hit sand. Or have to move the bike and trailer via some other transportation option. Or try to take the bike and trailer into a building. Or ride on a steep downhill where the trailer jacks the rear end up and reduces the effectiveness of the brakes. Or take a sharp corner hard and the trailer tries to push you off track.

Tourist in MSN

I agree that the metal bottle likely was partly at fault, thus I was that specific. The more deformable that a plastic bottle is, the more it can absorb some of the energy with an impact.

But those cages that fully wrap around the bottle with wire, when that wire is wrapped around a solid object like the metal bottle, the cage can't flex the same way that cages that do not fully wrap around the bottle can. If the cage can flex in a crash, it is less likely to damage what the cage is bolted to. I have bent many cages and was able to re-bend them back to the shape I wanted, frame was not damaged.