I read with interest another recent thread on carrying extra water for long gravel races. I've never liked Camelbak back pack style drink carriers. I find the back packs hot and uncomfortable, and the bladders hard to clean -especially if you use an energy drink. Until I started riding dirt and gravel roads, carrying 1 or 2 24 oz. water bottles was good for me. On the dirt and gravel roads I ride however, there is always a lot of dust and mud. It doesn't take long, before the tops of my water bottles are covered with dirt. Short of stopping to wipe the dirt off of my bottles every few miles, does anyone have any suggestions - short of using some kind of bladder device- to keep the tops of your water bottles clean during a ride?
For the most part I'll just ignore a little dust or dirt. I might blow on the lid to knock some of that gunk off or squirt a bit out to clear out the stream.
At landrun two weeks ago I was unscrewing the cap and pouring it out of the bottle into my mouth. Way too much mud/grit/sand/clay to stomach on that one.
Dirt makes you healthy and strong. I mostly just consider it added taste and don't worry about it too much. If it's really dirty I might wipe it off with my hands, which probably isn't an improvement.
Some people will put a crud catcher on their downtube to keep some of the crap off of themselves and their bottles.
Using a water bottle with a lid is also an option. Several brands make ones with single handed operation. I have a few old Camelback (edit: turns out they are Nalgenes with every hint of a label gone) ones. I saw these Thermos ones after a couple seconds of searching.
ChillyWilly wrote:Dirt makes you healthy and strong. I mostly just consider it added taste and don't worry about it too much. If it's really dirty I might wipe it off with my hands, which probably isn't an improvement.
Maybe -- but the sand is really hard on your teeth enamal!
dangle wrote:Some people will put a crud catcher on their downtube to keep some of the crap off of themselves and their bottles.
Using a water bottle with a lid is also an option. Several brands make ones with single handed operation. I have a few old Camelback ones. I saw these Thermos ones after a couple seconds of searching.
Thanks. Those look nice. Looks like they would be easy to open one handed. Just push in the button. I'll check them out.
Works very well. Very easy to flick open and close the cover. No "plastic" taste in the water. Reasonably prices and made in USA. My only concern is that while the plastic cover is easy to flick open and closed one handed, it looks rather flimsy. Not sure how well the cover will hold up to daily use on gravel and dirt roads.
The nalgenes work well, but you are right the caps are flimsy. I use them moutain biking and they do break occasionally . Fortunately spare lids are also available on Amazon.
turaco wrote:The nalgenes work well, but you are right the caps are flimsy. I use them moutain biking and they do break occasionally . Fortunately spare lids are also available on Amazon.
Works very well. Very easy to flick open and close the cover. No "plastic" taste in the water. Reasonably prices and made in USA. My only concern is that while the plastic cover is easy to flick open and closed one handed, it looks rather flimsy. Not sure how well the cover will hold up to daily use on gravel and dirt roads.
That's the 'old' ones I have had for at least 10 years! I didn't know they still made them. I never broke one and still have them around. I used to use them a lot, but don't have a mt bike with a bottle cage or a gravel/cx bike with an under the downtube mount anymore.
Thanks, these work very well at least with their factory bottles. I couldn't get a leak free fit with my Camelbak bottles for some reason.
Thanks for the post. Looks like a very good design. Probably wont fit my Soma Polypro bottles though. I switched to the Soma bottles because they seem to be the only squeezable bike bottle that don't give a plastic taste to the water. Even the so called BPA free bottles like the Podiums seem to always add a strong plastic taste.
Bobknh when I was out at the Pony Express last year in Kansas because of all the dust and dirt they had a bottle device canvas or something like that that fastened to your handle bars and you always carried that bottle in there to keep the dust/dirt out. I didn't get a real good chance to look at it but I bet if you look up the bike shop(Pathfinder) in Manhattan Kansas you could find out as they gave away all the free swag at the riders meeting.
Bobknh since you guys have helped me out I actually called the shop. At first I thought I was having a Senior Moment. lol What they gave away at the riders meeting and only a couple of them because of the expense was Revelate Designs Mountain feed bag. Holds a bottle of water/food and keeps the dust/dirt off. Hope that helps.
Yes is works as before that race they hadn't had rain and after a 4-5 mile shake down ride I probably had about 1/4" of dust on my bottles. Everybody that had a chance to win them was happy. It actually fits on the handlebars somehow but not sure how and can also be used for a feed bag.
The Nalgene caps are durable but can obviously be broken if mishandled. I have used mine for many dirty/rainy rides with great success. The bigger drawback I see - be careful that they don't pop out of your bottle cages! They seem to be slightly narrower than regular bottles, and therefore more prone to ejecting on any kind of bumpy descent. A little hockey tape on the cage can go a long way. Nalgene also makes a larger 1L size bottle that fits perfectly into a cage like the Widefoot designs. I used two of them on the Cutthroat's fork blades at LandRun and they worked great. https://www.nalgene.com/product/2591-0032/
Plastic sandwich bag and a rubber band is cheap and works great. Cover the top of the bottle with the bag and secure it with a good stiff rubber band. Go ride.
![[UP4720CH6_Enlargement]](http://www.thermos.com/imgs/product_imgs/UP4720CH6_Enlargement.png)
![[UP4120BR6_Enlargement]](http://www.thermos.com/imgs/product_imgs/UP4120BR6_Enlargement.png)
