Zip-Tie water bottle cage mounts

The bikes are pretty well sorted for the up coming tour of Iceland and the Camino De Santiago in Spain, save for places to keep our water.   

My initial inkling was to just keep bottles in the frame-bags and have a camel back set up with the MSR dromedary, but then I look to this guy for some inspiration in ingenuity. 

  Fork legs on a bike make a great spot for mounting additional supplies, when you run out of room elsewhere on a bike and helps to better to distribute weight; especially when you have a tendency to over pack. 

Many rigid bikes for snow, gravel, dirt, or touring are now coming equipped with fork brazons for front racks, water bottles, the aluminum Salsa's Everything Cage, or the new stainless steel Manything Cage from King Cage. 

Having broken two aluminum Everything Cages, over the past two winters,  I would highly recommend avoiding the Salsa product and putting your money into the stronger, lighter, and hand-made Manything Cage from Andrews.  

Great for large amounts of water, sleeping essentials, 

or beer. 

   Wanting to keep things light, and not needing large volume carrying capacity, standard sized water bottle cages will suffice for my purposes.  Upon inspection of my various cages at hand, the plastic  Velocity Bottle Trap looks perfect for a light-weight DIY fork mount.

The backside of the Bottle Trap is slightly concave perfectly suited for strapping snugly to a rounded fork leg, but the design of the Bottle Trap is to "hug" the water bottle from all sides effectively limiting options to  lace any straps or zip ties through the cage,  due to the close tolerance necessary to hold a water bottle in place. 

Fortunately there is a recessed area for the typical mounting hardware allowing an area for a zip ties to pass without interfering with the functional design of the Bottle Trap, but you have to drill the holes first.

Best to begin by Dremeling small holes,  which can then be elongated to accommodate the width of a  wide strong zip tie.

Took a total of 5 minutes to drill-out 4 cages. 

Weighing the options:

Specialized aluminum cage with bolts: 50 grams even.

King Cage Titanium with bolts: 34 grams

Velocity Bottle Trap with zip ties and pieces of a rubber tube: 44 grams.

(just the Trap weighs in at 32g, only 4 grams more than the King Ti Cage at 28 g)

A bargain at $7 vs $60 for the King

Testing durability of the plastic

Good product.  Passed the stomp test.
Now I know it won't break if a Viking kicks me as I ride by.

Now to mount it:

Wrap a length of old tube around the fork leg to prevent slippage.

Thread two zip ties through the holes, and secure the cage to the fork leg, wrapping the ties around the length of old tube.  

(this was just a mock up for placement, much stronger zip-ties should be used for actual riding)

voila 

Also important that your bottle cages match the color of your cable housing!

This color coordination is guaranteed to improve your riding skills and balance.

Spenarctic Man 2013

Arctic Man is a unique and very Alaskan ski/snowmachine race of 2 person teams begining with a downhill ski race that then involves the skier being towed by a snowmachine at speeds upwards of 80 mph, it is the ultimate "test of the strength of an athlete and the horsepower of a snowmobile."

Spenard is an area of Anchorage that recently earned the city its spot in the list of Travel and Leisure's "best cities for hipsters" , what-ever that means, due to the high concentration of bars, music venues, thrift stores, bike shops, boutiques, and eateries focused on local/ organic cuisine.   Nothing is more "hip" than having fun, being creative, and re-envisioning a highly publicized   corporate sponsored event into a DIY homegrown bike race/costume party/drinking event/ art party/ mobile dance party; hence Spenarctic Man.  Another similar spin-off of Arctic Man is the Turkey Man race, held the day after Thanksgiving by our friend Nate aka Bike Wrider.

The only rule with Spenarctic Man is that there are no rules, but riders typical team up in pairs, some with a unifying costume theme, and bike powered fun ensues.  Good times were had by all.

Tall-Bike Steam Punk

Chariot of Boom; Mobile sound system powered by marine deep cycle battery

None shall pass.

Meeeeooowww.

The Mixty Xtracycle easily handled the weight of 2 cases of PBR and my Pretty kitty passenger. 

First check-point.

Pie jousting. 

Boy Scout Gimp; so wrong.

Dino Love.

Chopper. 

Flame on. 

..and no this had nothing to do with 4-20. as many gawkers asked.

DIY cardboard and duct-tape koozies.

To the bike nerds: that is a Raleigh XXIX clearing 29x3.0 Surly Knards 

Rode like a BMX on steroids.