“The screen of my iPhone lights up: “Stephan has sent you an image”. Not much later another WhatsApp notification pops up: “This is definitely the lightest bike related package I’ve ever received”. Curious as I am I unlock my phone to take a look at the image Stephan sent me. It turned out to be a picture of a package from CarbonWorks with a bottle cage in it. If I was willing to try it? Sure!
Specs: a feitherweight cage
The CarbonWorks bottle cage consists of two convoluted tubes made out of carbon fibre and was designed and developed especially for high performance cycling. The bottle cage has a sleek design, weights only 8 grams and comes with two black anodized aluminium bolts. Mounting it onto the frame is very easy due to the flexible hole centre distance (60-70mm).
Eight grams of carbon might not be your first choice for a bottle cage on an adventure bike. You might even wonder what a lightweight bottle cage like this has to do on ViaVelo. Well, we wondered: why use a ‘heavy’ aluminium or steel bottle cage when there is a lightweight carbon alternative that’s supposed to be reliable as well?
Let’s test the hell out of this thing!
To test it properly I mounted the bottle cage onto my mountainbike, placed a 750ml Tacx Shiva bottle in it and went for a spin. On my way to the local mountainbike course I took the bottle out and placed it back into the bottle cage a few times. Sliding my Tacx Shiva bottle in and out was very easy. But I noticed I did it more carefully then normally.
Once on the mountainbike course there was no time for carefully sliding it in and out anymore. It didn’t seem to matter though. Even on bumpy terrain the carbon bottle cage kept holding my bottle tight. It really started to win my trust after surviving a few descents full of tree roots without losing a bottle.
The last 500 kilometres I tried everything to make it lose my bottle. I took the bumpiest descents, rode down stairs and bunny hopped as high as I could. But the CarbonWorks bottle cage did what it was designed for: holding bottles.
In conclusion
The Carbonworks bottle cage is a light and sleek looking bottle cage that keeps your bottle tight even on bumpy terrain. During the test period I got really surprised by how strong it is. I would use it on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix without a doubt. For a multi-day adventure I would probably chose for my good old Arundel Steel’s, although there is no other reason for that than the “better safe than sorry” feeling.
The only real downside of the Carbonworks bottle cage is its price. Saving a few grams doesn’t come cheap. The bottle cage is for sale for around €60 ex. shipping.
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