trek2.3bike

I hate water bottles. I use a Camelback. Always enough water and a place for my rain/wind jacket.

hotbike

Yeah, well, the darned thing about the eco Canteen is it's 23.7 ounces. Three tenths of an ounce short, of 24oz.

I went and bought a second Eco Canteen, yesterday, right after posting here (I needed a reminder). The Stainless keeps the water colder longer in direct sunlight. I will see this winter if the water feezes. At least, with stainless, it is posible to heat the bottle over a fire, to melt the ice? I will give that a try.

Also, the thought occurred to me, If an assailant attacks me, the stainless bottle would be better than plastic, if I need it to knock the guy over the head. Especially if it's full. (I don't carry a U lock.)

travelmama

I like the straight bottles with some contouring for gripping in the middle or 1/3 down from the mouth piece. I don't ride with a stainless steel bottle because I have too many of the cheap plastic ones I have found on sale. I would not mind switching to the stainless steel bottles as long as they had no paint on the outside, were reasonable priced and had replaceable caps/straws. Also, I like the idea of having a bottle with a wide mouth like those on coffee cups for the days when I want to ride with tea.

AlmostGreenGuy

I use a few different stainless bottles for biking. A have a Klean Kanteen with the Sport Cap 2.0, and a couple of those imposter $4.99 CVS Eco Canteens. The Eco Canteens are almost as good as the Klean Kanteens, at 1/4 of the price. They both let out a large enough stream of water to keep me happy.

I also use a 20oz insulated wide mouth Klean Kanteen. This is reserved for toward the end of my longer rides, so I have something to drink that is still ice cold on a hot summer day, or for grabbing coffee on the way to work. It works very well, but I wish it had a sport cap option for water drinking. The Cafe Cap isn't anything to write home about for coffee drinking, as it leaks too much to ever use in a bike's bottle cage.

slowandsteady

So how much business education or experience do you have?

When you are selling a product that is already established you need to either do it cheaper than everyone else or find a way to target a segment of the market.

As it stands now. There are tons of SS water bottles out there, all essentially the same. If yours is just one more of the same, then be prepared to lose your shirt. I doubt you can sell them cheaper than China/Walmart. Therefore you need to find a way to stand out or find a segment of the market to target aggressively and dominate it.

Example: Seatposts. Think of thompson seatposts. They sure as heck aren't the cheapest. They aren't the flashiest. The don't have the widest selection of models. They found a segment of the market that wants the strongest aluminum seatposts one can buy and they dominate it. They don't do carbon fiber, they just do aluminum. They are a successful company operating on the mantra of "WE make the strongest seatposts."

What will your mantra be?

cruisintx

I'm just waiting anxiously to see if you come with clear, flexible stainless steel like some have asked for. If you do, I can think of more lucrative markets than water bottles.

big_al

Easy to open valve, big mouth to put ice in it, flexible enough to squeeze and get a good gulp.....I love everything about mine specially when the thirst is kicking my butt.

no motor?

I like mine BPA free and with a wide mouth. The Specialized bottles from REI work great for that. I'd like a Kleen Canteen that fits in a mountain bike cage, but not enough to spend the money on 1 when my other bottles work so well.

I forgot my water bottle today - can you make one people wont forget?

Velo Dog

I probably own two dozen bottles, and i never think about them--I pick up the first one I see, fill it and slam it into the cage. If I had to pick some criteria that would influence my next purchase, though, there would be two important points and one minor one:
1. The mouth has to be big enough to admit a standard ice cube. I don't always remember to put a half-full bottle in the freezer the night before.
2. The cap needs a keeper, so it's permanently attached. I store the bottles open, to help defunkify, and if the caps are loose, they get lost.
3. I'd buy an insulated bottle if it worked and still had fairly large capacity. The two i have--I think Polar is the brand--cost two or three times what a conventional bottle does and barely make a difference on hot days.

enine

I have the camelbak stainless insulated, can't think of much to improve it though

BottleGuy

Do you find a significant difference between Eco Canteen's sports cap versus KK's SC 2.0?

slowandsteady, I can't reveal my strategy this early in the game.

cruisintx, LOL! Yes, clear, flexible SS, why hasn't anyone else thought of that!? Seriously though, I can't make everybody happy with a single bottle, but I can try to make the best of its kind.

AlmostGreenGuy

No huge difference. Throughput is very similar. The little clear rubber seal on the Eco Canteen sometimes falls out, which is an issue. Remarkably enough, the caps are actually interchangeable between the Eco and the Klean.

Nightshade

IMO, any new design for a water bottle must be wide mouth with a cap that necks down for drinking. Both parts must be able to stand boiling to really clean them when needed. Otherwise the wide mouth would make it easier to use a bristle bottle brush to scrub them something that is impossible with most bottles now.

vol

One of the post in the (I think) safety forum mentioned an accident when someone's water bottle dropped on the road and caused another cyclist's death. So make sure your bottle is securely mounted.

On another note, the problem I have with drinking a lot of water on long distance riding is that you'll have to find a toilet on the way. Those who carry a big bottle or 2~3 bottles, wouldn't you need to carry a portable toilet, too?

cruisintx

guess that's an individual choice; go to the trouble of finding a toilet or risk dehydration.

bengreen79

This post reminds me of Star Trek IV. Anyone else dorky enough to see why?

hotbike

I think I know the formula for Transparent Aluminum. Start with a fresh batch of fiberglass resin (6 parts), and add Aluminum Powder (4 parts).
But it's not transparent to Human eyes; it's only transparent to Radar.
Of course, the technical name for the substance is "Fiberglass Aluminide".

This is what the fiberglass bicycle is made of.

runningDoc

the jet valve on a couple cheap camelback bottles i bought really works well. its 100X better than the old pull up knob with teeth method.

plus you can actually just leave the valve open during rides and it won't leak, because it requires you to really squeeze the bottle.

the only thing is you have to make sure the whole bottle cap screwed tightly down onto the bottle or else the "jet stream" will go into your mouth and onto your shirt from a leaky seal.



i just got the cheapo non insulated versions (all under $10) because i use it only for water.

chrismetzger

I don't mind my klean kanteen with sports cap!

sknhgy 

Water tastes so much better out of a SS or aluminum bottle. Only one I have is screw top.
I prefer to drink out of a bottle as I do out of a glass. I don't like to squeeze and squirt.
Make a very-easy-opening metal bottle with a wide mouth and you may be on to something.

Homebrew01

You could give me a ss bottle with a $5 bill in it and I still wouldn't use it for cycling, for all the reasons stated earlier.

Boudicca

Contoured works better than flat. And you need a link to that sports cap if you want us to comment on it.

But stainless just isn't worth the hassle for a bike bottle, imho. It rattles madly in a cage, it dings when it bounces out and it's too hard to drink from when you are riding. Try the hiking/x-c ski brigade. They might like them.

Having said that, I have two metal bottles that I use for plane travel. Carry them empty through security, then fill them up to take them on the plane.

Doohickie

I can't imagine paying the price that a SS water bottle would cost, especially for something you might drop on a ride and not be able to pick up.

BarracksSi

+1 here, too. I even like the new patterns they came out with this year -- they look better on my blocky BMC than the swoopy lines from last year.



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