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TECH NEWS
bttr_image_10.jpgBTTR Bottle - the water bottle with integrated storage
A US cyclist has redesigned the humble water bottle, integrating a storage pod into the bottom of an interconnecting water bottle design that aims to solve the problem of carrying tools and water in the same bottle cage.
The BTTR Bottle has been designed by David Cornell who said he came up with the idea when unsatisfied with the aesthetics of a saddle bag to store essential tools. Switching to a storage bottle solved the appearance issue but introduced another problem, a lost water bottle.
His solution was a product that provides both a storage bottle and water bottle in one clever product, with two interconnecting halves. It allows you to carry all the spares and tools you need for a ride without sacrificing your hydration needs.
The lower half of the bottle is the storage unit, and it has its own cap. It’s big enough to carry such essentials as an inner tube, CO2 canister, tyre levers and other bits and bobs, obviously depending on the size of the tools you’re using.
The top half is your water bottle, with a regular silicone nozzle dispensing water when you need it and 385ml capacity, so you do sacrifice a bit of water capacity but that’s still more than using a regular storage bottle.
Key to the BTTR Bottle is a patent pending T-Lock that secures the two halves together, while a silicone band ensures they can’t come apart. BTTR, by the way, stands for ‘Better Than The Rest.’
The BTTR Bottle will cost $19.95 but there’s no word on UK pricing and availability at the moment.
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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20 comments
I usually squeeze my water bottles, cant see that one being massivly squeezy.
Ill stick with my bottle cage mounted multi tool an saddle bag, least it keeps my phone dry as well.
Joking aside, I stumbled across this item yesterday, which might be an option for those above who desire a small bottle sans tools:
http://www.morvelo.com/covert-soft-flask.html
(I have no connection or affiliation with Morvelo, but they can send me free stuff and I'd be fine with that
)
Collapsable bottles are handy as well, to top up at drinking water fountains. There are precious few of those around, but I know the locations of quite a few in London and you can't get a bidon under many of the good ones.
Perhaps, but they're missing a few things...
It's not made of carbon fibre.
It's not reassuringly expensive (needs to be at least £80)
It doesn't claim to save 10W over 180k.
No Zipp stickers.
But, it IS novel - thus scores 1 out of 5.
Hmm, maybe we will buy it after all.
Triathletes will buy this.....
What's wrong with a saddle bag? And please no quoting of the rules.
Nope, the storage doesn't look to be a particularly useful shape and I prefer my water bottles to be cheap enough to have several in case they get a bit manky. I'll stick with my saddle bag and ordinary water bottle - it's a tried and tested solution that works.
This is NOT a good bottle, and definitely not a good storage solution. I can't imagine who would want or need this.
Much prefer two full water bottles and keeping essentials in an Aeroclam tbh
I think personally the worst thing about this is the whole thing goes together with one of the terrible livestrong style arm band thingies. Though I suppose if you lose the supplied one ex-Armstrong fans will have something to do with the one they've had hidden in their drawer the last few years.
Looks ok to me, 385ml is better than 0ml if you can't live with a saddlebag or filling your jersey pockets.
At first I was like, cool. Then I was like, it screws with my water volumes on pretty much every ride I do.
Really would prefer more bikes to have intergrated tool and tube storage. Fair play for having a go. Definitely will work nicely for some people.
Actually I think that's quite a neat idea. I'm with the designer in that I don't like the look of saddle bags. I use a bottle storage solution in the winter when I don't need to carry two bottles, so this idea could let me continue that through the summer. Only downside is the small liguid volume.
Given that I have taped my spare tubes under the saddle (before any comments, this looks way better that a saddle bag), it would be good to have the option of one of these two-in-one bottles with the the tool volume reduced to carry just a tool and levers, and the liquid volume increased to take the space of the spare tube part.
This is crap.
In the unlikely event that someone thinks this is good, I may elaborate on that criticism.
[pulls up chair, opens biscuit tin] I think this is good [/pulls up chair, opens biscuit tin]
For the moment, I'm just going to help myself to your biscuits and glare at you.
I can see situations where the concept would work for me.
I do regular lunchtime rides, where I dont actually need to take water due to the rides typically being no more than an hour. I do need to take a few tools to make sure I can get back to my desk for the afternoon. Having a bit of water with me might be quite nice though. At the moment I just carry tools/spares in a water bottle tool holder thingy and forego the fluid. Tools and water in one bottle cage. sounds good to me.
385ml of water would actually work for me on slightly longer rides as well. all good so far.
My weekend rides are rarely longer than 3 hours. two bottle cages with 750+385ml of fluid and a few tools. again that would work for me.
And all of the above without using a seat pack (yet to find the perfect one for me) or stashing tools in jersey pockets which I can keep for soft items like a waist coat or arm warmers. I hate heavy or bulky items in jersey pockets.
On an epic all day ride I would probably just take a larger seatpack and use two regualr bottles but almost certainly would plan the ride around a convinience store or pub to stock up on fluids anyway.
So it could work for many of my rides but my main concern is just how practical that space is actually going to be, will it rattle and will it be a right pain getting access to the contents. That we cant tell from pictures alone.
Wait, what?
This is good for a commute bike that you leave locked up in less desirable places. But will no doubt be a ridiculous cost when it comes to the UK.
So I'll elaborate a bit, because your concerns are amongst the reasons I think it's crap.
I've bought a couple of tool bootles, and most have ended up annoying me. They can rattle and they don't actually store things that efficiently, because "things" have a habit of being awkward shapes. I'll quote something else from the article.
I bet you'd be lucky just to get one single extra bit in it, let alone any bobs. That also looks like a lightweight innertube above, in my experience a normal 25mm tube is often fiddly to get through the neck of a plastic tool bottle.
This is my current tool bottle, which you can pick up at PlanetX right now for just £5.
And the reason I like it, is that it's not actually a bottle. It's a zipped bag shaped like a bottle that opens along its length. Easy to organise the contents (I carry several bobs and bits), it has a bit of give when you're squeezing an extra item in, and it doesn't rattle.
If all you're going to carry are the bits shown above, stick 'em in your jersey or tape some straight to your frame. I think it's a product that solves a problem that doesn't really exist, and it isn't even an elegant solution.
No.