Bike bottle cages

It's not about weight; it's about the frame

A bottle cage bolts onto two mounts spaced 64 mm apart, and that's about the only universal feature in this range. Everything else depends on your frame : the available height in the frame triangle and which side you can remove the bottle from. That's where unwelcome surprises arise, long before the choice of material matters.

Side entry: the overlooked solution

On a small frame, a full-suspension mountain bike or a bike with a sloping down tube, there isn't enough room to remove a bottle from above. Bottle cages with side entry solve the problem: the bottle comes out sideways, needing only a few centimetres of clearance. Be careful: these models come in left and in a right — choose according to which hand reaches for the bottle and what's in the way on the other side (derailleur, battery, frame). This is the version people order incorrectly most often.

Materials

• Composite : the most forgiving and cheapest option. It flexes without breaking, making it a safe choice when you don't yet know how much grip you need.
• Aluminium : its big advantage is that it can be bent back into shape by hand. Bottle bouncing out? Bend the arms closer together. Too hard to remove? Spread them apart. No other material allows this adjustment.
• Carbon : the lightest, at around 18 to 25 g, and the most rigid. It can't be adjusted and will break if forced or overtightened — follow the specified tightening torque.
• Titanium : even lighter in some models, flexible, expensive and practically indestructible.

How securely it holds the bottle for your type of riding

On smooth roads, a lightweight bottle cage is enough. Once you head onto a trail, the number-one priority becomes secure bottle hold : a bottle ejected on a rocky trail is unlikely to be found again. Models designed for mountain biking and gravel riding wrap further around the bottle and grip it more tightly, at the cost of a few grams and a slightly firmer pull to remove it. That's a good trade-off on a mountain bike, but a poor choice on a road bike where you reach for the bottle twenty times.

When there are no bottle cage mounts

• Some clamp-on adapters let you fit a bottle cage to a tube without mounts, useful on a small frame, a gravel fork or a seatpost.
• The dual saddle-mounted bottle holders position one or two bottles behind the saddle: a solution for time trials and triathlons that frees up the frame triangle.
• The replacement bolts are what you need to order if you've lost the ones on your bike — bottle cages rarely come with them.

A small detail that prevents scratches

Tighten to the specified torque and no more: bottle cage inserts are part of the frame, and a stripped thread on a carbon frame is a serious repair. On a glossy painted frame, a washer or a small piece of protective film under the bottle cage prevents the circular mark that appears after a season.

To find out more: How to choose your bottle cage

See also: Cycling water bottles · Fidlock magnetic bottles · Handlebar bags and bikepacking