We all use them and them they’re as vital to us as cyclists and athletes as the fluid that they hold. However, we often pay so little attention to them. Companies at trade shows and expos hand them out like confetti, and all of us have a cupboard somewhere filled with them – water bottles, or bidens to call them by their correct name. Water bottles can be a disaster or a relief, in more ways than one. When we stand at the roadside of the grand tours, we chase those thrown by the lead riders, gathering them as souvenirs. The humble bottle is an iconic part of cycling and its wider culture.
Thankfully Elite put as much research into their own bottles as they do into every trainer that they design and produce. They’re perfectionists, with a goal to provide you the cyclist with a faster hydration and better performance. So, the question is what makes a good bottle for cyclists. Well, I guess first of all we need to look at what can be bad about bottles, so here goes. First off, don’t you just hate those hard plastic ones that you literally need to wrestle with to get a drop from. Then we get the basic flow valve bottles that leak everywhere, or the ones that don’t open easily with your teeth as you’re riding, or those that just stink or taste foul after a few weeks of usage. Yes, the humble water bottle is important, and so is the fluid that they carry.
These issues and more have been looked at by Elite and they’ve used the feedback of cyclists from all over the world and at all levels of cycling to produce a range of bottles for the full range of cycling disciplines and the way in which riders refresh themselves on the road or trail or trainer. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be looking in detail at the Elite range of water bottles, to help you to better understand what makes a great bottle. Hopefully we’ll all be riding outside again soon, and so we’re going to need to replenish the bottle cupboard.
The most obvious aspect to look at first is the bottle construction by Elite, and that means starting at the top, with it’s the FLY TEAM Elite bottle.
The FLY TEAM bottle range stemmed from the need to adapt the innovative, super-racing FLY series with The pro teams distinctive, premium cycling clothing, logos and overall design. It is no coincidence that the Elite FLY bottles are today the world’s most used racing bidons among Pro teams, as Elite speak to riders and feed all of that information back into this technical water bottle. FLY TEAM’s ergonomic cap with wider push-pull nozzle and wider mouth ensures an extremely higher liquid flow compared to traditional racing bidons. The bottle’s incredibly soft body contributes to the high-flow delivery. Just lightly squeeze the bottle to begin liquid flow. This is a key factor in order to obtain simple and effective hydration during the ride.
The Elite R&D Team worked hard to achieve variable thicknesses in the bottle body making it thicker on the top and at the bottom and way softer and thinner around the middle so that you can squeeze it very easily. These features make FLY Teams perfect for racing – in fact, the bottle ensures an exceptional grip while guaranteeing double water flow rate with minimum effort. Marginal gains lies at the heart of cycling and that includes hydration technology.
These variable thicknesses across the FLY TEAM also contribute in helping Elite to reduce the amount of plastic materials, without affecting the product’s technical features. In fact, less material equals less weight, and FLY Teams bidons are indeed up to 30% lighter than any other water bottle available worldwide. And, remember those tastes and smells from other bottles that I mentioned at the start – of course you do. Elite have overcome this by manufacturing The FLY TEAM using innovative odorless, soft and resistant plastic materials, which is the result of a 3-year study conducted with several Universities research – science and sport in harmony – the trademark of Elite.
Away from the top world tour teams, we come to the FLY ELITE water bottle. FLY ELITE is the lightest 550 ml, 750 ml and 950 ml sports bottle available worldwide. Its record 54 grams-only weight (550ml) is achieved through its variable thickness, discussed earlier. Being thicker on the base and thinner on the central body, this doesn’t just make it possible to use less plastic material, it also ensures a tight grip when cycling and an easy to squeeze ergonomic structure so liquid flow is abundant with the lightest pressure. Like the FLY TEAM bottle, the ergonomic cap with wider flat push-pull nozzle and a wider mouth ensure high liquid flow, which is also guaranteed by the soft bottle body; you just need to squeeze gently your FLY ELITE to get a vigorous liquid flow. Using the bottles at home on the trainer and on the roads, the FLY ELITE has been a revelation, truly.
I really did notice the softness of the bottle and the fluid flow, commenting on it to my wife, when trying to tell her about the science of water flow. My own son, who powers the rollers far more than I, even mentioned it himself. It’s simply an easy bottle to hold and to use.
This innovative, odorless, soft and resistant plastic water bottle is 30% lighter than any other standard bottle, and it actually feels good in the hand, being easy to remove and replace into the bottle cage. In terms of dealing with the smell and taste issues that often arise with bottles, the FLY ELITE is also hygienic and easy to wash. It features a 20% wider mouth compared to standard bottles, to help users to achieve better hydration and to properly clean and sterilise their bottles. Fly bottles are also dishwasher safe at 40°C and make it easy to disassemble, so you can dry both the bottle body and the cap with nozzle, and avoid any mold growth inside or the subsequent bad smell. The nightmare of the smelly bottle or the adverse taste to your drink will be a thing of the past with this well researched bottle.
Elite have gone one step further too; in order to ensure even more protection they’ve also created a practical protective plastic cap, available for purchase on www.shopelite-it.com, that you can tighten on the bottle to protect the nozzle from mud, soil and other external agents that might remain on the spout during use. This Cap is already included in the Fly MTB series, which we’ll write about in the next water bottle blog here at Pedalnorth.
In the next article, we will look at the water bottles designed for mountain biking and gravel biking, and introduce the issues around keeping fluids cool or warm. For the road cyclists out there though, why not kit yourself out for spring with some new Fly ELITE water bottles and taste the difference – literally.
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