Andy
Some things, like the humble water bottle, are so simple and disposable that it seems pointless to try to improve. But the Camelbk Podium bottle is indeed a better water bottle. For starters, they’re BPA free, so they’re safer, and water left overnight doesn’t take on a plastic taste.
Secondly, the Podium has a clever 2 way valve that keeps the liquid in until you give the bottle a squeeze, but freely allows air to re-enter the bottle so it can re-inflate. You can invert the bottle and give it a shake without anything leaking out. To drink, just grab the bottle and squeeze – no need to open and close a valve. There’s also a shut-off dial on top to completely close off the valve. You can toss these in a backpack and rest assured your shoes and kit won’t be drenched sports drink. After a couple months and many washes in the dishwasher (top shelf only) the bottles are as good as new, the valves as watertight as ever.
Drawbacks? They’re 2-3 mm wider than Specialized bottles, and may not fit in all cages. They’re also double the price of Specialized bottles.
The Garmin shop has a six pack of these babies for $45, which is cheaper than just about anywhere else (Camelbak lists them at $8 each). 100% of the profits go to the team’s racing/operating budget, so if you’re a fan of clean racing it’s a win/win way to support the Garmin team.
first!!!! no comment
if you hate the garmin grandpa’s sock argyle, camelback makes a standard sized generic bottle. just like the garmin model, with a really nice valve system and no plastic taste.
Their “standard” bottle is also a couple of mm. larger and is a struggle to place and remove from Campy carbon cages (read pretty much unusable).
like you need to drink when riding…
soft
this camelback sucks. they think they reinvented the bottle. jeez
So nice to not have that plastic taste and the cap also fits polar insulated bottles
and I had to think about what minus 6 equals 3…
too much BPA in my system already?
does it fit correctly in a standard water bottle cage (like a king cage) by any chance? i bought a bunch of bottles by elite, and unbeknownst to me at the time, that long dome-shaped cap on elite bottles prevents them from sitting snug.
Fits in Elite Ciussi, don’t know about King Cages.
The camelback bottles fit very nicely in the Tacx Tao cages, where regular/standard (Specialized) bottles seemed a little loose. You could always just “crush” the cages a little (as they are metal and plastic)to make the regular bottles fit, but I prefer the valve system on the camelback.
They fit in the Specialized E cages just fine. (which is a very light WB cage for only $8)
http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBCEqProduct.jsp?spid=41540