Sincitycycler

I picked up a Vintage Schwinn Letour and like so many other bikes from it's time, it only has one #$@&*! water bottle mount on the down tube.

Looking for tips on adding a seatpost bracket. Seems awkward to try to drill holes on the seatube. Help!

michael word

I would recomend taking it to your LBS or to a local frame builder as it would also need mounts rivited to the frame and they probably have a jig to line it up just right.

sch

What you want is a rivnut, preferably in 5mm metric size. These are like heavy duty threaded poprivets.
As Michael says you best have this done at the LBS, hopefully they are hip as to doing this. The tools are borderline for an individual to buy, not horrendous but not cheap. A google on Rivnut will fill in some details.

froze

There is no real inexpensive way to add holes to a frame because you don't have the bosses there to thread to accept the bolt.

BUT there is a very effective alternative that is inexpensive from Minoura; see: https://www.minoura.co.jp/acc-e.html Scan down towards the bottom till you see Extra Cage Clamp Band Set and/or the QB-90, these fasten to your frame to hold a standard bottle cage. There are also other brackets mentioned on this site for other ways to hold bottles.

operator

Easiest way is to get a frame builder to drill the holes for you.

froze

You can't just drill holes, you have to install by brazing the bosses on the frame, otherwise the frame itself is too thin to handle threading to accept any bolt. And when you braze on a frame that's already painted your going to remove the paint from the where your going to put the boss on then probably burn the paint surrounding the area; then you would have to have the frame repainted.

operator

Sigh. Let me rephrase -> Let the framebuilder install do all the **** that needs to be done so that you can mount bottles on your seattube. And yes, do this right before you get your frame repainted/repowdercoated. Otherwise you're looking for hack fixes that don't look good.

Your other choice is to put a profile aquarack on your seatpost. +2 water bottles there.

froze

Sigh...(I had to that it sounded good when read outloud!) Anywho, there are other choices besides the Profile Aquarack, read my above post where I mentioned this web site for alternatives, including a couple of frame attachements: https://www.minoura.co.jp/acc-e.html

By the way the Profile Aquarack will only let you put the smallest seatbag made under your seat in order to have room for the Profile, and thats iffy-if you can get the seat bag strap around the seat post with the Aquarack installed.

basscadetz

hi. my fix on this is just buy one of those water bottle holders that strap on. the velcro ones suck but there are ones with plastic fittings.

easy, cheap, easy.

operator

Lol. And true on all accounts. Zefal also makes some mounting gizmo. But coolness wise you have two choices: Aquarack and framebuilder

Rowan

The frame is an old one, with thick tubing. Installing Rivnuts is not rocket science. There are a number of references through the BFs Search function on how this can be done very successfully at home without the Rivnut gun. Most commercial frames these days use Rivnuts or similar, and they certainly ain't brazed on.

The only things the OP has to worry about are (a) positioning the holes so the top one doesn't interfere with the seat tube; (b) the holes are the correct distance apart for the bottle cage holes (c) the holes are "centred" on the tube, as in facing directly forward (d) the holes are clean and enable a slight friction fit of the Rivnut -- which has, of course, been selected as the right size for the cage fasters and (d) using a narrow piece of aluminium bar with a hole in the end and a spanner, to screw a bolt into the Rivnut, keeping the Rivnut pressed down, and tightening up the bolt. The aluminium will stop the Rivnut from turning and the bolt will do its job bringing the rivet section up snug on the inside the seat tube.

No heat, no brazing, no new paint job. All done within 10 minutes. The cost? A Rivnut goes for about 15 cents, I think. But you do need to know how to drive an electric drill and use a centre punch.

froze

Interesting; how reliable is this procedure? Will it strip out or rotate if one was to tighten the cage bolt too much?

Rowan

Not in my experience. You do have to tighten down hard to make sure the rivet part is truly snug on the other side of the metal. The usual indicate is slight deformation of the outside "ring" of the Rivnut to conform with the curve on the tube.

I've put on three or four sets of these now, and all have worked well. The best example was a bottle cage on the bottom of the downtube on my Fuji Touring -- everything is still going perfectly after four years, and nary a sign of loosening of the Rivnuts. In another case, I put on rack mounts on the seat stays of a tandem.

My only experience with loosening was on a Merida 900 Extreme that I own. An aluminium frame with a downtube that has a quite tight curve on the top. The Rivnut used on that obviously had trouble finding enough purchase underneath to remain in place. When it loosened off, I used the same trick with the aluminium flat bar and tightened it up again (cautiously).

dobber

The solution here is to use one bottle for hydration and the other bottle for carrying stuff. You'd be amazed at how much stuff you can get into one of the wide mouth 32oz Zefal Magnums.

Sincitycycler

That is a brilliant idea!

HillRider

Even commercial frames that use factory installed Rivnuts as water bottle mounts have occasional problems with loosening if the holding bolts are tightened excessively and allowed to corrode in place. Tighten the bolts moderately and be sure to grease them before installation. You can strip the threads of any fitting, Rivnut or braze-on, if you are too ham-handed with the allan wrench.

froze

Can you put a spare tire in one? and still have room for a spare tube in it's box, mini tool, folding mini pliers, tire tools and assorted other things? Then you also eliminate the one holder from carry more water; but that is an interesting idea.

n4zou

A very easy solution is to drop by a hardware or building supply store and use two EMT "clamshell type" conduit clamps. They come in several sizes starting at 1/2" and going to about 2". Simply pick out the size that will fit your seat tube and you will want to cut an old inner tube and use it between the tube and the clamps. That just prevents paint damage. Simply attach two EMT clamps to the cage, Use tape to hold the rubber strips to the frame, spread the clamps and push them over the frame tube, install supplied clamping bolts and tighten in place. Granted, it's not the prettiest thing you can do but it's cheap and it works very well. I just used one of these clamps to hold one of the new Mag-Lite 2-AA 3-watt flashlights to a plastic blinkie light clamp on the handlebar of my road bike. It works exceptionally well. I do have some rubber between the flashlight and the clamp. Below is a picture of my light and the clamp holding it.