My esteemed wife returned from a shopping expedition with the crushed remains of a water bottle that fell out of her Tour Easy’s under-handlebar cage. Fortunately, the truck flattened the bottle, not her, but Something Had To Be Done. She also had trouble maneuvering those newfangled long-body bottles around the rear edge of the Zzipper fairing.
My TE has a hydration pack attached behind the seat with the hose passing around my arm to a Velcro (nah, it’s generic hook-and-loop) strip safety-pinned to my shirt. Mary didn’t like that arrangement, because it required some fiddling when she sat down and poked pinholes in her shirt. She wanted an arrangement that Just Worked.
I removed the under-the-handlebar bottle cages from her bike and bolted a salvaged aluminum plate to the four tapped ferrules. The numbered holes on the plate originally held coaxial cable connectors, but I think they give the plate that snooty, high-tech, drilled-out, weight-weenie look.
A 50-ounce hydration pack (“Styled for women!”) fits neatly atop the plate, below the cables, and between the handlebars. We wrapped a two-inch-wide Velcro bellyband around the pack, Velcroed the bag’s top loop to the handlebar’s crosspiece, and secured the valve with another Velcro strap that doubles as her parking brake. The whole affair looks quite tidy under the fairing.
Now she simply picks up the hose and takes a sip: no acrobatics, no dropped bottles, no hassle. Life is good!
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 