Drinking and Riding

Too much time spent trawling the internet looking at photos of beautiful bikes can mean only thing. A severe case of bike envy and for me that applies to every last detail. So, I saw this photo of a handlebar mounted bottle cage with aluminium bottle and cork stopper and set about tracking one down. How much? You cannot be serious. So here's my version on a budget.

Step 1.
I'm sure this breaks some mechanical rule and would have purists getting in a right kerfuffle but I've done it and for the time being, it seemed to work. I attached a single bottle cage by putting the bolt that holds the handlebars on, through a spare hole in the cage. There! I've admitted to it. There was a fair amount of packing out went on but in the end, the cage seems to be steady and the handlebars don't move. The cage is an alloy 'Clarks' cage - under £5 inc. shipping from ebay. I also wrapped the front edge with some twine to stop the bottle rattling

Step 2.

Get the antique look bottle with a cheapo aluminium bottle, again from ebay (£3.97 inc. shipping). This one had a layer of silver paint which I removed with a combination of stripper and fine wet and dry paper, leaving a scuffed up vintage finish.

Step 3.

Tapered corks are available in just about every size. Choose one to fit snugly in the opening. Drill a hole through the middle. I put a short length of aluminium tube in and ran clear plastic pipe through it to use as a drinking straw.

No more fiddling with bottle cages while trying to avoid potholes.

Update: So, after a couple of 25 mile rides, I've come to the conclusion that one small bottle isn't enough and so it's either a clamp-on cage on the down tube (the bike doesn't have bottle cage braze-ons) or an adapted handlebar mounted double cage. Watch this space for a revolutionary new design.