Klean Kanteen steel bottles

For many years I´ve been using CamelBak drinking bottles on my bicycles. They are made of plastic, which is the norm in cycling.

Two or three months ago my bottles were filled with pure water instead of the usual apple juice-water-mix. Every sip tasted like plastic. Bike-riding should help to stay healthy. In my view, drinking water with a plastic taste while riding doesn´t seem to help with that. I was looking for a change.

I ended up buying two Klean Kanteen Classic 800 ml Sport Cap bottles for a good price at outnorth.

Whatever you carry within the steel bottles tastes like it should. Pure. It´s a big difference to the plastic bottles. To apply the steel bottles to a bike requires a bit more change, and along the way I discovered things I didn´t expect.

Because of the straight bottle shape it´s not ideal to use regular bike bottle cages. The usual bottle cage has a nose at the top to fixate the bottle, and bike bottles typically have a recess where that nose can fit in. The Klean Kanteen bottles do not have this kind of shape and the bottle cage nose therefore makes it more difficult to put the bottle into the cage, and it does not help to fixate the bottle.

The solution in my case were the King stainless steel flat tops. Flat top means these cages do not have a nose, or, how it´s named for the steel cages, they do not have a bend. These cages allow to take a variety of bottles, as long as they have a diameter of 74 mm.

Be aware, the bottles are not held as tight as with bended cages and the steel bottles inside of the steel cages can rattle every now and then. But in my gravel and road riding over the last couple of months no bottle fell off the bike.

On the pictures you see how the bottles are mounted to my Fairlight Secan gravel bike. The bottles work so well for me, that I use them also with my Fairlight Strael road race bike.

In regular use I noticed some things were functioning better than expected.

• You can grip the bottles at the bottleneck well and secure. Taking the bottle out of the cage, drinking while riding, and putting it back is no problem at all.

  

• Because the bottles cannot be squeezed, I expected drinking while riding becomes more difficult, but that is not the case. The sport caps of the bottles have a vent to let air in while you are drinking – it´s as easy as drinking from a plastic bottle.
• Carrying two bottles with one hand works well because the sport caps have a loop that serves as a handle. When you have to pack your bike with more than the bottles, this can help packing.

  

If pure drinking on the bike is important to you, steel drinking bottles could be a solution. I enjoy the taste and the good feeling of drinking healthy.