Yucky plastic water bottle
 

Hi,

Steve and I just finished a 20 mile casual ride yesterday. Pretty good for our third week as bike riders! It was a warm day, and I got thirsty very quickly. I grabbed my new (cheap) plastic water bottle, which I'd just filled a couple hours earlier with icy cold water. I took a big chug and bleh! It tasted like plastic. There's got to be other bottles out there. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

most all like that, except the hard plastic type and most riders don;t really like those (lotsa reasons)

Baking Soda Rinse is your friend, once every 4 or 5 fills

Polar insulated bottles are good. No plastic taste unless you leave water in there for days and days. Plus they actually stay cool for a while.

Then it tastes like algae instead. ;)

I agree about the cheap bottles... the hard plastic don't do that.

Not algae, it won't grow without sunlight. Mold however, is another matter altogether...

OK. So then it tastes like mold instead of plastic. :p

That's why I flavor all my drinks. I wash the bottles every so often with denture cleaner.

As soon as I return from a ride I take all my bottles (usually two water and one Gatorade) and rinse them. I keep a squirt bottle of bleach under the kitchen sink. I give each one several squirts, rinse two or three times, fill them, make up new Gatorade, and put them in the refrig. The Camelback gets a similar treatment but goes in the freezer while partly full (makes a nice ice cube) for the next ride. This routine takes but a few minutes.

This works for me, with negligible plastic taste. I usually have 3 waters and 2 Gatorades ready to go at any time, and can also use them on a hot weekend after mowing the south 40.

We used to wash our plastic canteens out with vinegar. Tasted fine till somebody P******in it as a practical joke (guess you had to be there)

+1 on the Polar. Mine have the rubber handle around the top and this makes it much easier for me to get the bottle out of the cage while riding. Love that little feature:)

I like the Nalgene On-the-Go bottles. They even sell them in the local grocery store. They're hard plastic that doesn't add plastic taste or absorb it from drinks. There's a nice finger hole on the top so I never worry about losing my grip and dropping them. And I prefer the flip cap to nipple bottles. The flip cap keeps the place where I drink from clean. I never have to worry about dust, goose poop, worm guts or anything else I've ridden through getting to or past my lips.

Camelback uses the same type of bottle, but puts their trademark bite-valve on top.

I like the 750 ml Camelbak bottle--the flip up straw and finger ring make drinking and maneuvering the bottle in and out of the holder while riding easy. The bottle is polycarbonate, so no nasty plastic taste.

+1

Polar bottles are the only ones I use these days.

I use 700 ml Ozarka and Nestle bottled water bottles. Cheap - come free with the water, lol. Never have a bad taste and are throw away when get beat up from use. Ozarka are round and fit my bottle cages better.

Just what I was going to ask- Why don't we recycle the bottles that water comes in? We pay enough for it- It is never tainted so the bottle must be good and it is re-cycling something that will go to the tip -Eventually.

+1 on the Polar. They're the only things I use on longer rides because they actually keep the water cool. The downside is that they are a little stiff, which makes them hard to squeeze to force out a decent volume.

For shorter rides I generally use bottled water that will fit in the cage (with sport tops if possible, but I'll use a regular screw top if necessary) - just toss 'em in the recycle pile after the ride.

I also use Polar 24oz bottles. I have used the same two bottles for two years now. I wash them out with clean water after every ride and let them dry. I do get mold growing in the crevices of the tops over time, I just soak them in a little bleach solution and scrub with a brush and their good for another few months.

Have to admit that I'm not overly sensitive to the plastic taste. I can leave water in a plastic water bottle for a week and drink it.

+1, but if you use HEED you need to clan them really often.

Great suggestions everyone. I'm really not that sensitive, but this really tasted like plastic. Think I need to get a Polar. I've never liked the nipple bottles, so I hope Polar has the flip caps. (tsl: Goose poop?)

I had a friend who had such a sensitive palate that if anyone brought coffee for her from the local SB, she could tell if they had used a wooden or plastic swizzle stick to stir in the sugar! She hated the taste of wood in this case.

Yeah, goose poop.

Two MUPs I use for commuting follow the river and the canal. Dozens, if not hundreds of Canada Geese live along there. They poop everywhere--in the grass, on the pavement, wherever their little goose hearts (or bung holes) desire. There are times when it covers the pavement so densely that the only way to avoid it is levitation. I've not mastered that, so goose poop gets flung up on the bike by the tires.

Um, eh?

Most wineries today no longer age the reds in oak barrels, so some of the wineries have been known to soak oak planks in the wine that's aging in the stainless steel tanks to impart the taste of French Oak...

- L.

Yup, iff'n ya ride anywhere where there might be farm animal or horse loads on the road, good idea to wipe before you sip.
Anyone who rides in rural Europe will know this, especially during the months when farmers do a lot of 'fertilizing'...
in the old days there were a lot of riders, pros and others, who would get digestive tract ailments and it took some thinking to finally figure out it was because they would ride tons of klics on roads loaded with cow and other forms of plop. And that stuff would get sprayed onto their water bottles, from which they drank... :eek:
I always carry a wipe cloth in my jersey pocket... sometimes 2 iff'n I'm not sure of the area I'm ridin.
wet, dewy mornings are especially prone when you least expect it.