I use Sigg aluminium bottles on the bike – the 750 ml “Sports” model –, mainly because I have a bad habit of not washing my bottles when I get home. At some point, every plastic bottle has this ominous black spot of some kind of mould living in the bottom corner. The Sigg ones can be steilized with boiling water (periodically, I fill them up from the kettle & let them stand for a while), they have wide mouths, and their caps come apart, and everything can go in the dishwasher.

However, for the bottle cage, holding a rigid aluminium bottle is a different task than holding a squeezy plastic one. The first time I became aware of this was in Ireland in 2016. There was a persistent rattle on the bike. You know the kind of rattle. The kind that is so irritating you can’t not try to fix it, no matter how flailingly useless your efforts are. For about a day and a half I was sure this must be the front mudguard rattling against the tyre, and I stopped several times to arse about with the mudguard stays to try and stop it. It must have been on one of these stops that I forgot to put my good red rain jacket (taken out and left on top of my red panniers) back in the saddlebag, so that it fell off and got lost. But a day or so later I realized the problem was actually the bottle rattling in the downtube cage. As it was an aluminium cage, I was able to stop the rattling by taking the bottle out and bending the cage inwards, so that it would hold the bottle tighter, but this turned out to be a very temporary fix.

I then got a plastic Topeak Ninja, which held the bottle well. I used it for a few years, but I noticed that its tab at the top was touching the bottle at a rather sharp angle, and tending to eat into the paint on the bottle. I didn’t like it doing this to the red metallic bottle, which matches the frame of Old Bike and isn’t available any more. The old cage got cable-tied onto the seat tube, where it didn’t cause any problems.

Three aluminium bike bottles: one matt blue, one matt green and one with a translucent red finish. They are 750 ml, which means they have a narrow section about 2/3 of the way up, for the cage to grip.
The Sigg “Sports” 750 ml bottles
side by side pictures of red bike. on the left with old aluminium bottle cage on downtube; on the right, this cage is now on the seat tube while a plastic cage has appeared on the downtube.
Left: the old Specialized cage on the downtube, right: old cage is on the seat tube & the Ninja is on the downtube

On New Old Bike, the first cages I got were cheap aluminium ones, like the old one on Old Bike, though with plastic bits at the top. But these aren’t enough. The bottle hits the cage on the way in and out and there was an argument starting to happen about whose paint was hardest.

I googled cages for aluminium bottles and came up with the Mounty Power Cage. This certainly holds the bottles very firmly, but I found it very hard to get them in. In fact, I found it next to impossible to get the bottle back in while riding.

In a local shop, I picked up an SKS Slidecage. This had a nicer in/out action, but it was still pretty tricky to get the bottle in while riding. It’s also set up to be used from one side, and I discovered I often want to put the bottle back in with my left hand.

What makes it easy to get the bottle in? I looked into this, and (astonishingly- who’da thunk it) the decisive factor is whether the opening of the cage is big enough that you can get bottom end of the bottle in without having to push the cage apart. Then it’s in, even if your aim isn’t very good – riding along while not looking down – and the rest is just giving it a shove down. No shit, Sherlock.

So, given that the SKS Slidecage was almost good, I looked at the other SKS models. I noticed that the SKS Topcage has an adjustable top tab – so it should be possible to set it so that the effective opening is a bit bigger. Also, the tab is gently rounded. I got a pair. They seem to hold the bottle nicely and the in/out action also seems very promising.

For the seat tube, I got the “Anywhere” version due to the lack of bottle bosses. This is well meant, but the Anywhere parts raise the cage off the tube by about an extra 15 mm. And this is very tight vis-a-vis the downtube cage and the top tube with the 750 ml bottle. I might yet try to fabricate something with a lower profile.

Close up of a green bottle sitting in the SKS Topcage, from the side, showing how the tab at the top snugly holds the waist of the bottle.
The SKS Topcage seems to fit the bottle nicely
View of the seat-tube cage from above, showing how the Anywhere mountings are quite bulky and set the cage further from the tube than a mounting via brazed-on bosses.
The Anywhere attachment, from above
Side view of both bottle in the Topcages, showing how there isn’t enough space for the seat tube bottle to fit down behind the downtube bottle.
Space is tight

Aha. I see there are a variety of adapters that can shift a bottle cage along whatever tube its on by up to about 4–5 cm. This would already make room to move the seat tube bottle down. Potentially, there’s even space to move the downtube bottle up by 7–8 cm. I can see some more bodging on the horizon …

Side by side picture of bottles in the downtube cages on Old Bike and New Old Bike, with a measuring tape for scale. The top of the bottle is only about 2 cm below the top tube on New Old Bike but there is about 8.5 cm of space at this position on Old Bike.
The frame is smaller, but also the bottle used to sit lower on Old Bike
Downtube bottle slid up to a position that would still be handy to take out
The downtube bottle could move out of the way
Measuring tape showing that the downtube bottle could be about 8 cm further up along the tube, which would allow the seat tube bottle to fit down behind it.
Quite a lot of potential here