Water Bottles and Speed.

Lots of triathlon debate about which method of bottle storage is "faster". Downtube, seattube, behind the saddle, between the aero bars - everyone's got an opinion...

I had a 5 minute discussion on the phone the other day with a manufacturer about how I would test this in the tunnel to determine the "fastest" method of storing bottles. I didn't get invited to the test session, which is cool (I've got a job and all and can't make it to everything down there! :-) ) - so, it'll be interesting to see how that test came out in the end.

Anyway, over the years, lots of confusion has been wrought on the general public regarding this topic thanks to inexact tools, inexact methodologies, inexact context, and, perhaps even hubris among other possibilities.

Let me just make my position clear on this topic - if determining how to store your bottles is your #1 goal in life, give me a call. With the use of a wind tunnel and a well thought out test protocol, we'll get the answer for your specific setup. However, don't expect to answer this question with a five minute set of runs - it'll take awhile to get a better answer for you.

Here's a cool video that we did at lswt.com a year or so ago:

if that doesn't embed real well, check out this link (~1.4MB *.wmv file and right click/save as to view):

http://www.biketechreview.com/images/lswt_bottle_reach.wmv

Go ahead and post this video, or link to this blog entry wherever you like - it'll help spread the word about the website and where BTR tests in the tunnel, and that's a good thing as far as making sure we're still around in the future! ;-)

take it easy out there,

-kraig