Here we go....I was selected by Jason at FairWheel Bikes to do a review on the newly designed New Ultimate carbon bottle cages. I recieved 2 cages, brand new and black, actually natural carbon color. Cages come with the standard steel bolts with little washers, so a few grams could be saved using ti. or alloy bolts....I stuck with the steal ones for sake of this review. Very good looking cages with a wonderful natural carbon weave...A+ visually. Cages both weighed 20.5 grams each and bolts weighed 7 grams. I installed one cage on my MTB bike which is a 18.5 lbs. Scott Scale hardtail. The other cage was put on my 13.2 lbs(with clinchers) Scott CR1 road bike. I am in North Kentucky, near Cincinnati...so this time of year riding is hit or miss, more miss. But I have finally got a few good MTB rides and road rides in to make a honest review. First was the MTB bike. The trail system i ride all the time are good flowing trails with many steep shorter climbs and some fast, curvy downhills. The bottle never slipped once and never moved! That was on some very bumpy and rocky downhills on a hardtail....so kudos to the cage for that. The bottles slide in super easy and are very easy to put back in! I used a few different shapes of water bottles also...some big, some smalller in size, every bottle worked the same, very well! So i would give the cages on MTB bikes and trails a A+. Next was the road machine. Actually just got back from a nice 30 miles today with 2500 feet of elevation and the ride ended with a bit of rain. Once again the bottle never moved or wiggled....stayed very firm and in place. Again...also very easy to pull bottle out and put back in. Never had to do that very annoying and dangerous..."look down" to shove the bottle in the cage. Also...the rain didn't affect anything either, didn't get slippery and move around...stayed firm! So all in all I would say these bottle cages are a great product!! They sell for $65 at FairWheel Bikes...so aren't super cheap but I feel a good value. They look sweet on the bike too! You can get them in natural carbon or white....very simple and sexy looking. Time will tell on durability, so i will update this review throughout the season. I will more than likely use alloy bolts to save a few grams and these cages will stay on my bikes! On a side note....I used the older designed New Ultimate cages until i got these and I must say it is night and day! The new cages are far superior to the old ones, I couldn't use the older ones on a MTB bike. The bottle would fly out on every big bump!! Even on the road bike they were much harder to silde in and out because of that little rubber piece and the bottle moved all around. The new design is a HUGE improvement....yes the new ones are a bit heavier, but worth it

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to go faster....just pedal harder!

Hi,

They're not that light but anyways....
A good way of testing a BC's worth of salt is to mount one on the seat tube and use a fully filled 750cl bottle. Then go ride a bumpy road at high speed and see how well it holds up.

Hmmmm....Not too sure how long that bottle is going to stay put on a seat tube doing a bumpy descent judging by pic 3..... (Sorry, Pat. )

Ciao,

P.S. Not sure I see the point of Jason's new marketing tactics either.....

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Being a snob is an expensive hobby.

Jason doesn't have any "tatics".....its a simple review of a newer product. Not sure why you would even question this?? Why would you say they don't weigh what i stated? Have you weighed them? But i will test the cage on the seat tube of my bike....at least you had one good point in your response

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to go faster....just pedal harder!

me neither

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Happy Trails !!!
MTB / Giant Xtc '05 / 8.7Kg
ROAD / La Perla Negra - FM015 / 7.0Kg

Good to see fdgrove making friends

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http://fairwheelbikes.com/cycling-blog/ ... ee-z5.html

LOL...i find it amusing how certain people have to make a perfectly harmless product review such a negative thing, sad actually!!

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to go faster....just pedal harder!

Hi,



Really?

What is there to say?
They look nice enough but inevitably suffer from the same engineering flaws hundreds of others using the same idea do but, hey, these weigh 5g less? What an achievement. Especially since virtually all of these goodies leak out of the Chinese factories by the truckload anyhow.
Great.

To top it all you also want to play your silly game "ad hominem" too? How puerile. Maybe someone ought to change his "tatics"......

Ciao,

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Being a snob is an expensive hobby.

Just to be clear...I don't care about your views of this product, that is what a review is for....positve or negative, its all good. i just have a issue with you accusing Jason of having some kind of marketing tatics....not so! You obviously just want to turn this into a fight and flex your BIG belgium arms, and i am not going to feed into this....your profile says it all "Being a snob is an expensive hobby" and what a great hobby!

CIAO

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to go faster....just pedal harder!

That Scott is pretty cool, is there a thread on it?

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Exp001

the mtb bike or road bike?

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to go faster....just pedal harder!

The mountain bike, I barely saw the road bike. The mountain bike had a full side shot, which peaked my interest. Is there a thread on it?

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Exp001

no thread yet.....I am still tweaking the bike. Will have it down to 17 lbs. soon then i will post a thread.

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to go faster....just pedal harder!

I do not care if FWB sells those for even over 100 bucks but decided to buy no name Chinese cages for 10.50 pcs recently which included shipping. They came in at 15gr-pcs and with some decent drilling avoiding reducing of the clamp force of the cage I have ended up with 12.5gr per cage.IMO now sanded to black matte black they look sexy ,too.
Considering there is no need for ultimate "western engineering know-how" when it comes to cages I do not get it what brings people to that point of not only purchasing "a not super cheap" product but an exorbitant expensive one? "sexy looking"? why pay so much for same quality sex?
If it is Elite or Arundel or New Ultimate. All these brands carbon cages are available from Chinese manufacturers for approx 11 bucks a piece for the end customer.
Known brands buy from China for 5 bucks and put some graphics onto it and sell for .... ending up with 65 bucks plus shipping
I know we had this discussion before.
Therefore it is not a surprise that there are a bunch of people out there who find reviews like this as part of the marketing job.

At the very least the process of the reviews is documented, so everyone can make up their mind on that.
Also, if you happen to like a product, you're obviously free to procure if from wherever you want. Internet and all. Finding it really hard to put much blame on FWB about those "reviews".

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Bikes: Raceur, Beateur

wassertreter.....very well stated!

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to go faster....just pedal harder!