Water Storage

[Scatman]

I'm curious to hear everyone's pros and cons on the best way to carry water while bike packing.  I will say this now my goal is to only carry food in my jersey.  I hate wearing a hydration pack and would rather keep the water on my bike.  That said I plan on using a full frame bag to make up for not having a pack (or at least try some).

Bladder in the frame pack?
Bottles on fork?
Bottles on seat post?
Other ideas?

Thanks,
Scatman

[stumpyfsr]

Hi, Scatman! It very depends on how far are you going and what terrain. Bladder in frame bag is good idea - you have all the weight centered on your bike. Relevate Design has a sleeve for hose, for example. Also, with very little DIY you can have bottle cage on downtube with frame bag attached.
Bottles on fork will make it harder to ride rough technical trails. But some places just require that extra capacity. I ride mostly in Midwest, where water sources are near limitless, so 3L bladder normally enough for me. Hope my 0.02 help

[wahday]

I’ve just been working out my water carrying system. Where I live and have ridden, I need to carry all my water as there are no reliable water sources. I spread my water weight out around the bike. I can carry up to 9 liters (good for two days, one night) with the possibility of more on the rear rack and/or fork cages. Here’s how I arrange it:

Three 28 oz. bike bottles on frame (it came with three mounts), one 28 oz. in bar mount cage, one 28 oz. in pack pocket, 2 liter nalgene on rear rack, 1.5l bladder in pack, 1.5l bladder on bars in a bag = 9 liters total

I like riding with a light pack and water bladder personally. I find I stay more hydrated that way. But the pack is just 1.5 liter water bladder, 28 oz. bottle, tools and any layers I need to shed, so it stays fairly light (and I agree that you should strive to keep weight off your back if possible. Otherwise, everything else is on the bike, spread out. On my previous bike, I also hose clamped cages to the forks which worked very well. I used inner tube sections to protect the fork paint and help prevent slippage. I can add that to my current rig of needed, too. It also adds weight up front which I would want to balance out with something in the back, so it requires a different arrangement of the gear to do that.

[cavscout]

I put the camelback bladder in the top of my frame bag and ran the hose up to the handle bar bag and really liked that setup.  I need to lengthen the hose to drink in a more upright position while riding and it made me think that sewing a loop into the top of my frame bag would be a nice feature for hooking the bladder to and keep it at a slight incline.  Possibly even a dedicated velcro shelf at the top to support the bladder above the other contents.

[ascar_larkinyar]

i have been experimenting with 28oz water bottles and soft small bladders. 

three on the frame, two on the forks and two on the bars via mountain feed bags.  the other option is to carry a 4L platypus bag in the frame bag and fill it up only enough what i will need for the day/night.

it seems like no matter how light weight i make my bike and bikepaks, that lots of water makes it very heavy.  can't always rely on finding a stream or water source to filter, although i carry a filter also.

[joeydurango]

Anyone have any actual experience riding with cages hose-clamped to a suspension fork on really rough, techy trails?  For the AZTR 750 I think I'll need that capacity - can't fit it anywhere else on my particular bike - but I'm not really looking forward to riding what seem to be rocky, rocky trails with those bottles up front.  The weight I'll just have to deal with.  But is slippage an issue?  How about bottles flying out, even with tiedowns?  It's this option, or carry an entire 200oz on my back - no thanks!

[fotooutdoors]

No experience with P-clamps, though I do ride my fargo on decently technical terrain.  Yep, without retention, water bottles do eject.  If I am going to be riding technical stuff, I use toe straps to keep the bottles on board, and haven't had any issues besides how long it takes to get a drink.  I don't love having that extra weight on my front wheel; it makes it harder to get over obstacles (rock garden, logs, etc) in a way that having weight nearer to the rear doesn't, though that may be my (lower) riding skill talking.

I remember seeing a pugsly somewhere on the interwebs (maybe mtbr.com) with water cages attached to the seat stays at the rear wheel.  Basically, the guy attached the cage to a p-clamp and the rear rack mount.  Something like that could work for you if your chainstays are long enough that heel strike won't be an issue.

[bmike-vt]

I remember seeing a pugsly somewhere on the interwebs (maybe mtbr.com) with water cages attached to the seat stays at the rear wheel.  Basically, the guy attached the cage to a p-clamp and the rear rack mount.  Something like that could work for you if your chainstays are long enough that heel strike won't be an issue.

that was joe:

http://joecruz.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/attaching-extra-bottle-cages-to-pugsley/

[pmac]

I used a couple of bottle holders clamped to the front fork for 28 oz bottles on a section of the GD last summer.  I used some velco straps to prevent ejection.   It worked pretty good until one of the holder, which were pretty cheap, snapped.  I'll use that setup again, but with better quality holders.

[joeydurango]

I'll be using King Cage ti strap-on cages.  Local and the burliest thing out there from what I can tell.  I am worried about the ability to lift the front end over obstacles, but so it goes.

Thought about trying to get the cages on the rear swingarm somewhere... but short-chainstay, thru-axle rear ends aren't all that conducive to this sort of rigging.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

[Scatman]

I really like the look of Justin's setup on his TD rig.  I like that one can see how much water you have until putting a bladder inside the frame bag.

Scatman

[joeydurango]

Hey, do you have a larger version of that photo?  Or, if Justin's reading this thread, do you have a photo of the setup for the bottles under the saddle?  Something like this could potentially work for me... and would keep the weight much more centered on my setup.

[THE LONG RANGER]

It's a Profile Designs Aqua Rack:

http://www.rei.com/product/721789/profile-aqua-rack

It's certainly a convenient place to put some bottles, but it won't work for every setup. If you check out my rig, the frame has a fairly small front triangle, and a ton of seatpost sticking out, over two of my hands - which makes my roadie skin cringe. But, it gives enough room on the post to attach the aqua rack below the saddle bag, and still (barely) clear the back tire. This won't work for everyone.

I don't remember too many problems with ejection.. but notice I switched out the plastic holders that come with the aqua rack with some normal cages, that can be bent to get a better grip on things. Most of my ejections happened in NM, near the Gila, on those really fast, bumpy descents. Usually, it's the same place I'd blow out both tires at the same time. Happened every time.

Bottles are useful, though. I could easily keep track of which bottles I'm currently using to treat water and mix up some Gatorade-ish/EmergenC, without sullying my bladder. The front bottles weren't used until probably Colorado and by NM, I was using 4 bottles and a 60 ounce bladder (I have a thirsty body). Never ran out of water, except the last day.  The bottom pod on the downtube is a pod for tools.

[Mark_BC]

I see some metal water bottles in photos here. I want to avoid getting cancer or developing female characteristics so I don't want to use plastic water bottles. Any suggestions for metal ones?

[joeydurango]

Justin, that's a great setup if you can swing it.  I can get that Aqua Rack at the shop - it's just that I don't deal in triathlete stuff at all and was under the false assumption that all of those mounted to the seat rails, where the seat bag would be in the way.  The post-mount version looks pretty sweet - and I'm tall, so I have lots of post showing.  Did you ever have any leg/bottle rub at all?

Metal cages and a tie-down should keep things in place... I'm going to have to try this.  Thanks a bunch!

[THE LONG RANGER]

Did you ever have any leg/bottle rub at all?

Naw.

And yeah - there's two different versions Profile Designs makes - one fits underneath your saddle; one attaches to your seat post.

Although I had no trouble in either of my TDs, I have snapped one of the little arms that comes off the "rack", where you then affix the cages too, in the past. There's a weakness in the design: the collar of the bottle rack has the bolt go through one of those arms, and it's just an easy place for it to crack under stress. 

Not much of a problem in a triathlon, or a road TT, but the part just isn't designed for flying down singletrack Still a useful piece of kit, as I go through ~ 1 bottle/hour on summer road rides.

[riverfever]

I see some metal water bottles in photos here. I want to avoid getting cancer or developing female characteristics so I don't want to use plastic water bottles. Any suggestions for metal ones?

Klean Kanteen makes some. I brought an insulated one with me for CTR last year. I did not use a stove and it was really nice to go through town and fill it with coffee and still have it be hot 6 hours later. I used a really old plastic cage to hold it. The issue is the small lip on the cage that fits into the groove on a typical plastic bottle. I cut the lip off so the bottle would have contact with more surface area on the cage (hard to explain) and never had it fly out when mounted on the seat tube. 

[timroz]

I had a bladder in my frame bag develop a leak on white rim once and didn't notice it for a while.  It rubbed on a zipper or something.  We were cutting it close on water - took just a bit extra in case it took longer than usual - so not noticing real fast was kind of bad.  If it had been on my back I would have noticed sooner and I've never had a bladder leak when it's on my back.  I use 2 bottles in cages, a 6 liter MSR bladder on the back,  and 3 liter platypus spare on the back if I need a full day of water now.  It sucks to have 9 liters on your back, but I feel it's safer.