A bottle cage is device used to affix a water bottle to a bicycle. Composed of plastic, aluminum, stainless steel, titanium or carbon fiber, it is attached to the main frame of a bicycle, the handlebars, behind the saddle, or, in uncommon cases, the fork. Most modern bicycles have threaded holes in the frame to hold the bottle cage, often called braze-ons even though they may be welded, glued, riveted, or moulded into the frame material. [1] Clamps are necessary on bicycles not so equipped, such as older or less expensive models.
The most common location for a frame-mounted bottle cage is on the top side of the downtube. The most common location for a second frame-mounted bottle cage is on the front side of the seat tube. Small bikes and mountain bikes with rear suspension often do not have enough room for two bottle cages inside the main frame triangle. Some mountain bikes have highly sloped top tubes that limit the size of bottles mounted inside the triangle.
Some touring bicycles have a third frame mounting location: under the downtube.
Bottle cages may be mounted behind the seat with a bracket that attaches to the seatpost. [2]
Some uncommon forks include bottle cage mounts.
Tandem bicycles may have as many as six bottle cages.
Recumbent bicycles may have bottle cages mounted to the steering mechanism or behind the seat back.
The vast majority of bottle cages consist of a single hoop of metal tubing or rod bent to hold the bottle snugly and engage the neck, or an indentation in the case of larger bottles, to prevent it from bouncing out.
Varieties, often made out of plastic or carbon fiber, may completely encircle the bottle.
Some manufacturers have released non-standard bottles and cages that only work with each other in order to offer specialized shapes (streamlined, for example) [3] [4] or restrict consumers to purchasing brand-specific items.[ citation needed ]
The standard bottle cage has two mounting holes, two and a half inches (64 mm) apart, to match the threaded holes in the frame, and through which small bolts pass. Some have a strap, adjustable for non standard bottles. A fork might include bottle mounts as well. If equipped a 3 hole configuration is normally used to allow the cage to be mounted higher or lower on the fork. The holes are usually sized and threaded to accept an M5 × 0.8 bolt, which means standard course metric threads with 5 mm in diameter and 0.8 mm pitch. [5]
The standard size of bottle cage holds a bottle 73 mm in diameter and 127 mm tall (2-7/8 inches or 2.875″ diameter and five inches long), or bottles in other lengths with an indentation that far from the bottom for the tab on the cage to engage.
Some examples of bicycle lighting take advantage of the bottle cage by using it to hold a bottle-shaped battery to power the lights. This sort of bicycle lighting has proved popular. [6]
Many small tire pumps come with a mounting bracket intended to be mounted alongside a bottle cage.
The Trek Soho 3.0 comes with a stainless steel coffee mug designed to fit in the bottle cage mounted on the front side of the seat tube. [7]
In addition to the fairly standard cycling water bottle, cages have been produced to hold commercial 1 liter and 1.5 liter water bottles. [8]
Until the 1960s, cyclists often carried a second bottle on the handlebars, held by a bottle cage fixed to the handlebars themselves and by a third point to the handlebar stem. Such bottle cages are familiar from pictures of the Tour de France. Riders had a cage there rather than have two on the frame, where the centre of gravity is lower, because at the time the Tour's rules insisted that riders carry a pump. The pump took up the length of one frame tube and made a second bottle cage on the frame impossible.[ citation needed ]
A tricycle, sometimes abbreviated to trike, is a human-powered three-wheeled vehicle.
A bicycle frame is the main component of a bicycle, onto which wheels and other components are fitted. The modern and most common frame design for an upright bicycle is based on the safety bicycle, and consists of two triangles: a main triangle and a paired rear triangle. This is known as the diamond frame. Frames are required to be strong, stiff and light, which they do by combining different materials and shapes.
A bicycle wheel is a wheel, most commonly a wire wheel, designed for a bicycle. A pair is often called a wheelset, especially in the context of ready built "off the shelf" performance-oriented wheels.
A derailleur is a variable-ratio bicycle gearing system consisting of a chain, multiple sprockets of different sizes, and a mechanism to move the chain from one sprocket to another.
A touring bicycle is a bicycle designed or modified to handle bicycle touring. To make the bikes sufficiently robust, comfortable and capable of carrying heavy loads, special features may include a long wheelbase, frame materials that favor flexibility over rigidity, heavy duty wheels, and multiple mounting points.
The bottom bracket on a bicycle connects the crankset (chainset) to the bicycle and allows the crankset to rotate freely. It contains a spindle to which the crankset attaches, and the bearings that allow the spindle and crankset to rotate. The chainrings and pedals attach to the cranks. Bottom bracket bearings fit inside the bottom bracket shell, which connects the seat tube, down tube and chain stays as part of the bicycle frame.
The headset is the set of components on a bicycle that provides a rotatable interface between the bicycle fork and the head tube of a bicycle frame. The tube through which the steerer of the fork passes is called the head tube. A typical headset consists of two cups that are pressed into the top and bottom of the headtube. Inside the two cups are bearings which provide a low friction contact between the bearing cup and the steerer.
A bicycle fork is the part of a bicycle that holds the front wheel.
Due to the nature of triathlons as a race consisting of multiple sports many pieces of technical equipment have been borrowed from other sports, or developed specifically in an effort to race faster and improve a competitors safety.
A bicycle seatpost, seatpin, saddlepole, saddle pillar, or saddle pin is a tube that extends upwards from the bicycle frame to the saddle. The amount that it extends out of the frame can usually be adjusted, and there is usually a mark that indicates the minimum insertion. Seatposts can be made of steel, aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber, or aluminum wrapped in carbon fiber.
A fork end, fork-end, or forkend is a slot in a bicycle frame or bicycle fork where the axle of a bicycle wheel is attached. A dropout is a type of fork end that allows the rear wheel to be removed without first derailing the chain.
The stem is the component on a bicycle that connects the handlebars to the steerer tube of the bicycle fork. Sometimes called a goose neck, a stem's design belongs to either a quill or threadless system, and each system is compatible with respective headset and fork designs:
A bicycle handlebar is the steering control for bicycles. It is the equivalent of a tiller for vehicles and vessels, as it is most often directly mechanically linked to a pivoting front wheel via a stem which in turn attaches it to the fork. Besides steering, handlebars also often support a portion of the rider's weight, depending on their riding position, and provide a convenient mounting place for brake levers, shift levers, cyclocomputers, bells, etc.
A braze-on is the name for any number of parts of a bicycle that have been permanently attached to the frame. The term "braze-on" comes from when these parts would have been brazed on to steel frame bicycles. Braze-ons continue to be so-called even though they may be welded, glued, riveted, or moulded into the frame material, depending on the material itself and the connection method used elsewhere on the frame.
A luggage carrier, also commonly called a (bicycle)rack, is a device attached to a bicycle to which cargo or panniers can be attached. This is popular with utility bicycles and touring bicycles.
Centurion was a brand of bicycles created in 1969 by Mitchell (Mitch) M. Weiner and Junya (Cozy) Yamakoshi, who co-founded Western States Import Co. (WSI) in Canoga Park, California to design, specify, distribute and market the bicycles. The bikes themselves were manufactured initially in Japan by companies including H. Teams Company of Kobe and later in Taiwan by companies including Merida. The Centurion brand was consolidated with WSI's mountain bike brand DiamondBack in 1990. WSI ceased operations in 2000.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to bicycles: