Anyone have anything they'd like to rant about?

[Andeh]

I feel like if you crash hard enough, nothing's going to hold your bottle. A couple weeks ago I had a high speed OTB (I think I clipped a pedal). The whole door from my Santa Cruz "glovebox" ejected, including the bottle cage and bottle. Nothing broken, it just popped out. The bottle stayed in the cage, attached to the door. It was pretty shocking considering how snug the door is.

[simple]

Pro tip: give your King Cage a little bend tweak to tighten its grip on your bottle now and then. That’s why they are great. You can do that hundreds of times. Can’t do that with carbon, and cheapie alloy cages will eventually break.


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Stainless steel cages are even better

[tellybele]

For longer rides in the 80s, a WTB large h20 cage for a litre Evian bottle on the down tube, a regular bottle on the seat tube and a Fish booty rider was the way for hydration, bites and gear.

[rideit]

Fish booty rider?

[jamal]

Moving on: I think "hydration packs" came into vogue when people finally realized that they were spending thousands of dollars on expensive purple ano parts with speed holes, or even carbon fiber, and then weighing their bike down with several times that weight in water. If you're carrying a 1L water bottle, you definitely notice the extra weight over bumpy trail sections!

The smarter ebike companies have gone back to usable water bottle mounts, and even stash compartments, because once you add 15+ pounds of motor and battery, the extra water weight isn't so noticeable.

???

The weight of the water is still there whether it's on your bike or your body, and I'd say it's a lot more noticeable when strapped around your waist.

If I'm wearing one, I drink the water in my pack first so I don't have as much weight on my shoulders or waist later on in the ride. Being able to fit two big bottles in both mtbs is real nice since If I do need some extra carrying capacity I can keep the pack light and just have some extra snacks and a jacket in there and little or no water.

[tellybele]

Fish booty rider?

Fish is Russ Walling's company that makes haulbags, portaledges and wall climbing gear. He made a nice hip pack outa ballistic nylon with a champelt on the center outside for extra durability. Mine has an ocelot looking pattern...part of the endangered species line ;^)

[jamal]

Oh yeah so related to the road riding chat I recently got one of those garmin varia radars with the camera. It's, uh, almost good, but

-camera not good enough to read a license plate most of a time (it's in the highest 1080p mode).
-records only in 30s clips that are a huge hassle to view sort through unless you remember to hit the button to save an incident
-if a car behind you matches speed because it can't pass, radar immediately drops the signal and says there's nothing behind you
-settings for speed and location overlay on video don't work
-just having a rear camera misses a lot
-radar range is about 450ft, which is good on slower speed roads but is not much warning on highways
-too fucking expensive, even at dealer cost. retail is $400.
-you can't cycle through the light modes without turning it off. it goes high, low, flash, flash, standby.
-i seem to accidentally take pictures sometimes when i push the button to save a segment of video into the "locked" folder

On the plus side, the radar is fairly cool and useful, and something on video is better than nothing I guess. I found an addon field in connect iq called something like bike radar traffic that gives speed and distance of cars, vehicle count, and then also syncs to a website that draws a map that shows where every car passed you and how fast it was going.

[Spats]

???

The weight of the water is still there whether it's on your bike or your body, and I'd say it's a lot more noticeable when strapped around your waist.

If I'm wearing one, I drink the water in my pack first so I don't have as much weight on my shoulders or waist later on in the ride. Being able to fit two big bottles in both mtbs is real nice since If I do need some extra carrying capacity I can keep the pack light and just have some extra snacks and a jacket in there and little or no water.

When in a pack, the water is suspended by your legs and arms, and the bike is free to move around without the additional inertia caused by the extra weight. The total weight is the same, but the bicycle responds differently to bumps and rider input!

(This is easy to test: ride an ebike downhill with the assist off, then take the battery off and put it in your pack, and ride it down the same section of trail with the assist off. The bike will feel much more responsive under you, and less clunky over bumps, since it weighs about ten pounds less.)

[joetron]

Stainless steel cages are even better

Yep. And only $26 vs $66 for Ti.
Ron is making most cages in both metals now except for the side loader which is only Ti at the moment


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[Canada1]

Stung on the cheek bone twice yesterday by something. I look like I got the shit kicked out of me.

Yesterday something stung or bit me through my glove. My hand now appears to have no knuckles. Crazy to have this go a second time in the same summer!

[MegaStoke]

I got stung once on each of the three rides I went on this weekend. Must be wasp season.

[XXX-er]

The neighborhood entomologist tells me there are lots of wasps cuz conditions are really dry up here, its a level 5 drought

[evdog]

FYI, the rogue panda feed bags with the bottle cage hidden inside are awesome for carrying bottles. I can’t imagine a bottle ejecting out of one of those.

Cool. Hadn't heard about those. Gotta say I'm a bit skeptical of a top load bottle cage holding a bottle in. The bottles I've lost had all a drawstring cinched around the top and bottle still came out. Seems like a cage that would hold a bottle tight enough would also be a pain to put in/take out bottle to drink from.

[californiagrown]

Pro tip: give your King Cage a little bend tweak to tighten its grip on your bottle now and then. That’s why they are great. You can do that hundreds of times. Can’t do that with carbon, and cheapie alloy cages will eventually break.


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hahaha. I still remember the day i was bitching about how my cage didnt snugly fit my waterbottle and having it rattle around. My buddy silently just walked over to my bike, bent the cage in a little bit, put the bottle back in and shook his head in disgust at me.

[singlesline]

Not to diminish your rant, but I’ve had good luck w Specialized side load zee cages on a few bikes and Lezyne Side Load cages as well. YMMV


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Also had good luck with the Zee Cage II side loaders. Just the regular composite in matte black, not the fancy carbon.

Curious if the people having trouble were on the old zee cage or the newer version II...I appreciate the classic style cages on non-MTBs, but a full-wrap side loader seems way more secure and I've yet to have a bottle come out of either of the Zees I have on my FS bikes.

And for <$20, you can buy 3 of them and have money left over for the price of a ti King cage.

If you want classic-style cages, the kings are sweet. If you want cheaper alloy ones, I think the MSW ones feel a bit nicer than the other generic cages. Not skinny-ultralight, just a nice shape and come in a few color options for $10 or less.

They also make these easy swap ones:

Don't have to remove the bolts to pull the cage. Sort of a niche use case, but I am tempted to pick one up for my gravel/road bike as I usually run a single cage (looks better) but will add a second one for long/hot rides.

[rideit]

Elite Cannibal.
Side loads from either side. Have never lost a water bottle, even my full 1liter. Many, many bike parks, many many whole enchiladas, gooseberry’s, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, rowdiest shit I can find globally.
9 stars.
I have them on 8 bikes.

[jackstraw]

So I added some tape to lip and it appeared to help slightly, but no. Lost the bottle again yesterday. Backtracked and found it. Caught the rest of the group 15-20 minutes later to hear they had all been stung [emoji16].
Just got back from the shop with a new zee cage. I have that cage on other bikes and have had no issues. I will never make the mistake of buying an Arundel cage again. Looking back I think it was a supply chain issue and my choices were limited at the lbs.

[Jax]

Elite Cannibal.
Side loads from either side. Have never lost a water bottle, even my full 1liter. Many, many bike parks, many many whole enchiladas, gooseberry’s, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, rowdiest shit I can find globally.
9 stars.
I have them on 8 bikes.

These are what I use on my gravel bike. At SBT last year, going downhill around a fast corner over massive washboard, there were dozens of dropped bottles all over the road. I always wondered what cages were used that tossed bottles like that. Haven't lost a bottle yet and the washboard has been insane this year.

[Falcon3]

Also had good luck with the Zee Cage II side loaders. Just the regular composite in matte black, not the fancy carbon.

Curious if the people having trouble were on the old zee cage or the newer version II...I appreciate the classic style cages on non-MTBs, but a full-wrap side loader seems way more secure and I've yet to have a bottle come out of either of the Zees I have on my FS bikes.

Yup, the 3 i have broken were the Zee II. All 3 snapped where the upper arm attaches to the baseplate. Two of them didn't take a direct impact, just the momentum of the bottle broke it from the bike slamming the ground. The third might have been a side impact, not 100% sure. But the plastic is definitely more brittle than other cages and that area takes a lot of force and it's not very -reinforced.

[Roxtar]

hahaha. I still remember the day i was bitching about how my cage didnt snugly fit my waterbottle and having it rattle around. My buddy silently just walked over to my bike, bent the cage in a little bit, put the bottle back in and shook his head in disgust at me.

[Boissal]

The Specialized Diverge gravel bike I bought on here a couple months ago is missing a couple small random items like BB cover and various grommets for cable ports. I started trying to source those and holy fuck is Specialized making it impossible.

First there doesn't seem to be a standard manual for the 2019 Diverge and all the exploded parts list are for more recent versions of the bike with significant changes to the design. The parts list on the website can be narrowed down by model/year but somehow gives items that are not compatible so it's useless: I bought a couple of grommets that are specifically listed under that year and model of Diverge, neither came even remotely close to fitting.

I eventually managed to find the correct part # for the BB cover and ordered it from some random website: it's the right part but without the bolt. Grrrrr. Got in touch with Specialized to ask about the bolt. Dude on the chat tells me he'll just send me a new BB cover since they come with the bolt. I tell him I just need the specs of the bolt, not a whole new part, but he's having none of it. Fast forward 2 weeks, envelope from Specialized in the mailbox, one ziploc with a giant sticker that says BB cover with bolt. Inside: one BB cover, no bolt.

Sigh...

[climberevan]

I use the Lezyne cages that look like the Elite Cannibal ones above. I'm also baffled by all of the dropped bottles.

[Canada1]

Last year I had a bottle bounce out of an elite cannibal on the first 20 miles of a white rim lap. That one hurt on the last 20 of that day. Only time I've ever lost a bottle, but also the worste time possible. I bought one of the new camel backs. It's over engineered and all, but it is also bomber and reliable. If it bounces off, I have bigger issues than water.

I'm getting arm pump big time as I get more fit and faster. is it a grip strength issue, or should I be doing curls.

I find myself having to shake my hands out after about 10 minutes of fast decending.

[Andeh]

I'm getting arm pump big time as I get more fit and faster. is it a grip strength issue, or should I be doing curls.

I find myself having to shake my hands out after about 10 minutes of fast decending.

Doing more pullups can't hurt (uses grip strength), but in my experience usually arm pump is a combination of factors related to brakes. Brake angle (wrong angle makes your grip muscles fire more), brake reach (if they bite further from the bar, it uses more muscles to pull the levers), grips (too soft, too small, too large can all cause overgripping), brake size (rotor/power, weaker brakes mean you're braking more, more powerful ones you can engage in quick bursts), and of course technique (dragging is more fatiguing than quick bursts). TLDR: it's complicated, and probably will take a lot of puzzling to narrow down the culprit. But also, shaking out after 10 mins isn't crazy.

[zion zig zag]

^^^^Whats the best lever angle? It seems like steep would be good for the attack position, but I know that’s wrong.


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