Water Bottle Location

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I had an old steel Schwinn frame without water bottle brazeons drilled
and tapped for water bottles on the seat tube and down tube.

The seat tube has the water bottle in the normal location.

The down tube has the water bottle mounted high. This wasn't what I
expected, and not what I told the mechanic.

However, I still haven't figured out if I should be pleased or
displeased.

The bike is a tall bike. The higher water bottle location does make
it more accessable while riding.

There's enough room to extract a tall water bottle from the cage.

The bike is slightly more top heavy, but the difference is so marginal
I doubt it is a factor.

Yet, on all the taller frames I've seen with brazeons for water
bottles, the down tube mount is lower on the water bottle.

Why?

[Brian Huntley]

On Nov 8, 11:11*pm, wrote:
> I had an old steel Schwinn frame without water bottle brazeons drilled
> and tapped for water bottles on the seat tube and down tube.
>
> The seat tube has the water bottle in the normal location.
>
> The down tube has the water bottle mounted high. *This wasn't what I
> expected, and not what I told the mechanic.
>
> However, I still haven't figured out if I should be pleased or
> displeased.
>
> The bike is a tall bike. *The higher water bottle location does make
> it more accessable while riding.
>
> There's enough room to extract a tall water bottle from the cage.
>
> The bike is slightly more top heavy, but the difference is so marginal
> I doubt it is a factor.
>
> Yet, on all the taller frames I've seen with brazeons for water
> bottles, the down tube mount is lower on the water bottle.
>
> Why?

Dunno, but my bike (an Urbanite) has 3 mounts, and the position of two
of them are slightly wrong for me. The 'normal' two are okay for
regular use, but if I put a large bottle holder on the seat tube (for
touring), it interferes with the downtube holder.

I worked around that by fastening a strip of aluminum plate onto the
bolt holes with normal M5 hardware, and attaching the bottle holder to
a second set of holes in the plate, about 3cm higher. I had to use
nuts, but it's was actually quite easy to do.

The lower holes (under the downtube) are fine for a 500ml bottle but
cause a 750ml one to interfere with the front fender. I plan to lower
it with a similar plate-and-bolts approach before next summer. That'll
give me a full 3L on the main triangle.

[Werehatrack]

On Sat, 8 Nov 2008 20:11:57 -0800 (PST), may have
said:

>I had an old steel Schwinn frame without water bottle brazeons drilled
>and tapped for water bottles on the seat tube and down tube.
>
>The seat tube has the water bottle in the normal location.
>
>The down tube has the water bottle mounted high. This wasn't what I
>expected, and not what I told the mechanic.
>
>However, I still haven't figured out if I should be pleased or
>displeased.
>
>The bike is a tall bike. The higher water bottle location does make
>it more accessable while riding.
>
>There's enough room to extract a tall water bottle from the cage.
>
>The bike is slightly more top heavy, but the difference is so marginal
>I doubt it is a factor.
>
>Yet, on all the taller frames I've seen with brazeons for water
>bottles, the down tube mount is lower on the water bottle.
>
>Why?

There's good reason not to put a bottle mount on the downtube at all.
Dirt slinging off the front tire tends to land rigth on the bottle,
making the drinking end rather unsanitary. This is part of the reason
for camelbacks; they put the water supply safely out of the
flying-crud zone.

As for why the mounts are customarily in that spot, it's simple. It
was a place where they *could* be located, and it was easy. Nobody
thought about the problems it caused initially. Putting them low
rather than high protects the frame against possible failure, as the
upper end of the downtube is stressed more heavily than the lower end
due to braking leverage on the head tube.

Personally, I prefer to put my water bottle on my belt.

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