tmh657

I have a new to me frame that has to have SHINY silver water bottle cages. I have some nice stainless steel cages that look great but are kind of matte silver. They are going on a Colnago Master and need to look right.
What do you use on your bike that looks good? Does not have to be a bargain. I saw these but hard to tell if they are super shiny since they are stainless. https://velo-orange.com/products/vo-...ess-steel-cage

wschruba

ENE (Dia Compe) Gran Compe. It's shiny.

Dave Cutter

I sometimes try to use period appropriate accessories. If the Bike has lots of shiny aluminum and is vintage enough that the wire cages were the popular choice at roughly the time it was new … then aluminum cages is what I might use. I'd never use a modern plastic cage on a vintage steel bike. I've also found that I can polish the cages (and bike parts) to make them extra shiny.

Salamandrine 

Funny thing is, TA was the standard cage that everyone used up until the mid 80s when Blackburn and others came out. The standard one was chrome steel, inexpensive, and quite shiny. The fancy one was heat treated aluminum, black, and expensive. Later on they had a cheap aluminum one that was matte silver and tended to break.

If you want modern, the Nitto R are pretty ultimate. I got a couple a while back when the yen/dollar was more favorable. Worth it IMO.

thumpism 

T/A handlebar mount cage. Shiny chrome.

Slightspeed

Here's a couple of mine. The one on the blue Legnano I've had for 30 years, don't know the make. I don't know what the one on the Raleigh is either (Ebay find). The other one is marked "Arundel", and I just picked it up at a swap meet to use as a spare. I tried mounting the Arundel one on the Raleigh handlebar for longer rides, but didn't like the look of the mount.

eja_ bottecchia

verktyg 

I had a couple of NOS bar mount TA H2O bottle cages that I've had since the mid 70's. Recently decided to put one to good use.



Another bright shiny TA object on my 1969 Gitane TdF



Here's bright and shiny. I had a bunch of these old REG erector set H20 bottle cages. I've always hated them not just because they're ugly but they all had sharp edges that can cause a nasty cut! I took them out to the driveway and stomped them flat before I dumped them into the recycling bin.



verktyg

plonz 

Cougrrcj

I sold this one to a fellow BF member a few years ago. I had bought it in 1976/77 when I first bought my S-10S

SJX426 

This was given to me not long after I purchased this bike. It is not shinny but I really don't want shinny as most of the other parts aren't. Those that know, understand this is a fairly popular cage in some circles (Elite). It also has a tendency to brake, mine did. It was repaired at the place I was working at the time. They did a lot of SS welding.

I could see spending a lot of money for the cages I liked so bought a spare. All my other bikes have inexpensive AL cages, if they have mounts. If they don't, I use a small bike backpack with Camelback bladder.


P1000188, on Flickr

PedalingWalrus

Here are mine

top506

I'd call the VO cages semi-matte:



Top

Aubergine 

SJX426 

@top506 - Like that configuration!

Chombi1 

I recommend the Tanaka waterbottle cage.
I was looking for water bottle cages for my Montello last year and was considering my usual choice of Blackburn Competition cages,........when I chanced upon these Tanaka cages at an LBS. One look at the perfect welds and the beautiful finish on the Tanaka and I was sold instantly! Just top quality cage that will compliment any C&V bike build!. Not cheap, but you really get what you pay for in this instance.

noobinsf 

I just got one of these from Rivendell, but I have yet to use it, so can't give a review:

https://www.rivbike.com/collections/...er-bottle-cage

gaucho777 

+1. I'm a fan of the TA cages, but some of the later aluminum ones are a little flimsy. I have had a couple break at the bottom bends. Check for little cracks on the inside of the elbows.

Note also these two different versions below. Notice how the one on the seat tube has a rounded tube near the mount. The cage goes inside this tube. Over time, the cage may tend to shift back & forth. The one on the down tube is welded. Both of these are alloy. For the matte grey cages, you can also strip the anodizing and polish these cages to make them shine.

Salamandrine 

Yeah, those are the later TA alloy cages I was referring to. They could be a little flimsy. The 70s TA allloy cages were black and IIRC cost like $20 or something at a time when the regular steel TA cages were $3. They were quite sturdy. Presumably heat treated. Below pic shows the one on my Masi, which has seen quite a lot of miles, to put it mildly. Sorry it's not shiny.



Also, the new retro Zefal cages are a pretty good reissue of the older style early 70s TA chromed steel cage. The chrome isn't that good though. Starts to flake off after a while. Still, they look good. I have one on my PX10, for now. Don't have a picture handy though.

79pmooney

The classic. Yes there are better cages but those ones went decades/10s of thousands of miles with electrolytes in the old bottles. They never shed WBs. If one ever broke off mid-ride, you had been ignoring easy to see slow growing failure in a weld for hundreds of miles. (They hold up as WB battery cages too, For the old NiteRiders.)

TA kept making those cages long after the market disappeared as lighter aluminum cages took over. Why? Because pro racers insisted. Losing WBs on a hot day was far more costly than the grams saved.

I think I still have one in use, Purchased sometime in the '80s. Been on a bike most of the time. Fond memories. They accompanied all of the longest, hardest and fastest rides of my life. Now I run King cages. Equal or better in all respects. In between were a string of aluminum cages that saw the recycling bin after they broke and a few in a box that haven't broken - yet. (Every aluminum cage failure I've experienced led to a WB rolling down the road.)

Ben

noglider 

Aren't there any no-nonsense, inexpensive cages? I've bought a lot of cages recently, and I haven't liked most of them.

79pmooney

The Kings at $20 are so good I just don't even look elsewhere.

Salamandrine 

Here's the Zefal vintage style. It's not quite as cool as the old TA chrome cages with the mono clip, but not bad. Works well, as expected. I seem to recall there was a transitional model like this briefly, with the double bolt system of the 70s TA cages, and the basic shape of the 60s type. Maybe that was the Zefal knockoff version of the 60s TA cage? Anyone seen the original version of this? Perhaps that's what I saw.

wschruba

I've got a pair of the King Iris cages--pretty design, functional, but definitely not shiny. A few minutes with a sisal wheel and some green (fine) polishing compound would fix that, though. He goes to a lot of conventions, and his products are usually less expensive there, FYI. They hold most bicycle bottles tenaciously.

Classtime