One thing that’s bugged the hell out of me about my Tri bike is the frame bottle cage placement. Either it’s designed for people with tiny arms so they need to have it high to reach, or they just didn’t think it through properly.
As you can see in the pics below, the bottle it quite high on the downtube, meaning that when you remove it from the cage there’s not that much room. Also, the downtube is nice and fat at the bottom so would shield the bottle from the wind. The standard position just seems a bit odd.
Interestingly, Cervelo have bothered to put a mounting rivnut above the bottom bracket. It’s allegedly for a forthcoming storage kit, but that doesn’t appear to be happening. Could be useful for relocating the water bottle though..
So, being a bit of a bodger tinkerer, I’ve modified the Elite cage with some aluminium strip. First of all, I used a dremel to cut a slot in either end of the base of the case and slotted the ally strip through. Bend it gently into the required shape and then measure and drill the 5mm holes.
Trim the ends up, cover in some carbon effect vinyl and bolt it back on with 3 bolts. It sits much lower and is far easier to get out the cage. It’s not a long reach at all and feels very natural. Job jobbed.
Code, Life and Learning 