I was suffering during the 2008 Rouge Roubaix race which includes twenty miles over gravel roads. On the first gravel section, I was dropped from the main group and then by a second smaller group of riders. It was looking like I was in for a seventy mile solo ride when a guy in the small group in front of me looses his bottle and turns back to pick it up (I think he was down to his last one). I grabbed his wheel and was able to catch back on. I was glad he didn’t have a Dave-O cage by Arundel.
I first heard of Arundel cages while killing some time at a bike shop in Little Rock, AR. The girl in the shop was almost oddly enthusiastic about them and mentioned they had a rule on club rides that if you dropped a water bottle, you had to purchase “Arundel”. I recall getting some mileage out of the word “Arundel” with my buddy who was with me (yes, at the girl’s expense) since the word just seemed to flow off your tongue. A few months later I was looking for a little bling for the bike and decided I would break down and purchase some new bottle cages.
In my book, the most important job for a bottle cage is to hold on to the bottles. I noticed that a few of the plastic / carbon cages would no doubt hold a bottle but getting the bottle in and out for a drink seemed like quite a bit of work. It took a hard tug to free the bottle and precision aim to line it back up when replacing it. That wasn’t something I wanted to mess with in a tight group. Bottles could easily be moved in and out of the Dave-O cage and the black carbon cages look pretty sharp on my carbon framed bike. I parted with ~$100 at a local bike shop for a pair.
These things hold on to a bottle like my miser buddy Tony Martin holds on to cash. I sometimes ride some fairly bumpy roads and in three years, have never dropped a bottle. I don’t recall having one even start to come lose. I use the taller water bottles on most rides and with some of the metal cages I have used in the past, the bottles sometimes start moving sideways to the point where my leg brushes the bottle top while pedaling. Not so with these cages.
Another nice thing about these cages compared to the metal ones I have used is that they don’t mark up your bottles. I did use a metal cage before with gel side buttons that did not mark the bottles either. That cage was about 50g and although I am not a weight weenie, the Dave-O at just 30g is lighter and I guess it all adds up. Yes, the other cage was only around $20 so that adds up too.
You no doubt can find a cheaper cage that can probably do a decent job of holding bottles. When you step back and consider the amount of money we pour into bikes, what’s another $100 to add that little extra bling to top it off? Arundel’s Dave-O cage looks great and won’t leave you begging for water in a race. Arundel is a Texas company and provides a few different color schemes and finishes on the cages. They also have a aero shaped bottle and cage combo I use on my time trial bike.
