Carbon bottle cages = pointless?

Gabbo

They cost £40 odd. Plastic bottle cages cost a mere ten quid. Still, I'm tempted by the carbon bottle cages. Not for means of saving weight (30g isn't much and a trip to the toilet has that corrected) but by means of having a half decent looking bike.

What bottle cages do you have? Carbon, plastic, or metal?

Cleat Eastwood

plastic. they do seem an extravagance for daily use - after all how much do full bottles of liquid weigh

paulmon

A fool and his money comes to mind with carbon cages. Certainly at an ameteur/recreational level.

seige

im a fool
better than spending on smokes though 8)

Grill

Love mine, they're not going anywhere unless I decide to splash out on some that are sub 20 grams!

Gabbo

Grill wrote:

Love mine, they're not going anywhere unless I decide to splash out on some that are sub 20 grams!

Wow! Weight junkie perhaps? I have a lot to learn...

Just Cannondales

Pointless, but I have 2 on my best bike

ShutUpLegs

To some people form is important, how your bike looks, how you dress and how you look when you ride.

I'd recommend Blackburn or Tune carbons. Or Tacx Tao.

simon_masterson

Pointless, but they look the part I suppose...

gloomyandy

and they don't have to be that expensive less than £20 from planet x at the moment

Mikey41

I have a pair of aluminium ones on, £6 each. They weigh nothing as it is, so I don't see what the point of carbon ones is. :?

hipshot

The point of carbon cages is that people will pay money for them.

rolf_f

There's carbon cages and carbon cages. I scoffed at the Look cages for £40 each when I was speccing my Look 585. I went for the £6.00 Elites. And they looked terrible on the bike. So the inevitable happened and I spent £80 on bottle cages. But they are the coolest bottle cages in the world so it's alright (and they do work really, really well!).

I feel I should feel guilty about them but I don't! In truth, they are as stupidly extravagent as the rest of the bike!


Then I got some Chinese carbon bottle cages for my Ribble. They cost £26 the pair. Worst £26 I've spent on bike stuff. How can they make such a dogs breakfast of such a simple object? They looked terrific but the design tended to try to push the bottle away from the cage rather than into it. The carbon was way too thick and virtually crushed the bottle in its grip. The lacquer was soft so it scratched and that in turn scratched the bottle to hell so everything ended up looking shabby. Due to the iron like grip of the cage, one time I ended up pushing a bottle in to hard and the heel got cracked (though araldite did a good fix).

So I got the Elite Customs I originally planned for the Look. They still look a bit crap but they cost £6.00 and they hold the bottles well and the pros use them so they must be good.



Carbon cages are only justifiable in terms of looks and then, if you must, at least get ones that work well.

majormantra

My experience of ebay Chinese carbon cages is exactly the opposite. I paid £16 for two including postage about 3 years ago and they've seen me through thousands of miles including races and several crashes. The tight grip on the bottles is fantastic because it means I'm never the guy whose bottles eject when the chaingang goes over a pothole and as a bonus they weigh about half what standard cages do. Win-win.

springtide9

The PX ones are £30 for two... £15 each rather than £10 for plastic.

Really like the PX ones... really springy and hold the bottle really well. Been tempted to get them for my other (non road) bikes as they hold so well.

.. I have spent £30 on more pointless stuff, so it's not like they are a massive expense in the grand scheme of things.

pinarellokid

+1 for the chinese ones.. they come in all styles,

pick a style you like and find the best seller.. sold my last two with the bike as the buyer loved them,,

but so did i.. will be ordering again soon

£17 for 2 delivered

rolf_f

MajorMantra wrote:

My experience of ebay Chinese carbon cages is exactly the opposite. I paid £16 for two including postage about 3 years ago and they've seen me through thousands of miles including races and several crashes. The tight grip on the bottles is fantastic because it means I'm never the guy whose bottles eject when the chaingang goes over a pothole and as a bonus they weigh about half what standard cages do. Win-win.

To be fair, that isn't exactly the opposite experience to me. I think the difference is that you like that experience but I don't.

Certainly my Chinese cages would never eject the bottle but then I don't think the Elites would either. The Look cage weighs 24 grams and the Elite 42. But the Look cages are probably a good bit lighter than the average Chinese ones. I tried weighing mine on a kitchen scale and it came out at around 1 oz (a very ancient scale but probably much more accurate than many modern ones) so 28 grams or so. It wouldn't surprise me though if I weighed the Look cages on the same scale that the difference would be a bit more than 4 grams but it's all small numbers.

springtide9 wrote:

The PX ones are £30 for two... £15 each rather than £10 for plastic.

To be fair - £10 for plastic is unneccessarily extravagent. £12 for two is a better target.

I did think long and hard about the PX ones but it seemed wrong to put PX cages on a Ribble!!

sungod

get cages that, in order of importance...

i) work well

ii) you like the look of


for colour matching, the elite custom race cages mentioned above are very good and great value

carbon/metal/plastic, doesn't matter, frames are made of the same, doesn't matter either, get whatever you like for whatever you are willing to pay, then have fun

Pickled Pig

Gabbo wrote:

What bottle cages do you have? Carbon, plastic, or metal?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bicycle-Bike-Water-bottle-holder-cage-bracket-blue-red-/130762309271?pt=UK_SportGoods_CyclAcces_RL&var=&hash=item1e720a7e97#ht_3476wt_1344.

£10 for a bottle cage - you must be mad!

I actually bought them coz I couldn't find any polycarbonate cages in blue at the time. There a bit "twangier" than the polycarb Specialized I had before but have lasted over a year, including winter riding, carrying 1000ml bottles and haven't discoloured so I'm sticking with them and would buy them again. No connection to seller etc.

Bordersroadie

springtide9 wrote:

Really like the PX ones... really springy and hold the bottle really well. Been tempted to get them for my other (non road) bikes as they hold so well.

+1.

Functionally they are superb, holding big 1lt bottles either full or empty (some cages don't hold large bottle well when they're empty, allowing them to vibrate out). The little stop that fits the bottle bottom is great as it even allows tapered-end bottles to be held securely, not all cages do this.

Sentral

Well, my frame is carbon, and I wanted something to match purely on aesthetics. I only paid £13 for a pair shipped from China, which is cheaper than plastic items from the UK, plus they've got the benefit of weight, but I wouldn't notice wither way

wjperrin

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=83688

Look no further

rolf_f

wjperrin wrote:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=83688

Look no further

I thought about those (Elite Sior) but they get less good reviews than the Elite Custom. They look better though IMO - pretty similar to the carbon version.

wjperrin

But for 6 quid with an elite bottle you can't go wrong, I ordered a pair during the week and I'm v impressed!!