Why on Earth would I want three of these things? Since the KMX was a touring trike that was modded to take on long distance, it's got room for 2 water bottles: 1 for water and 1 for electrolites. The only way to really enjoy the Speed equally as much is to ride it for miles and miles on end. It was when Paul told me that his training ride participants would be covering 125 miles in a single day that made me decide to design 2 water bottles onto the Speed.
Problem?
Since the trike's designed with an integrated location specifically designed for a water bottle cage right smack in the middle of the boom, adding a second one in another location other than the boom (of which there'd be no space anyway) would make it look awkward. I love assymetry, but not on a trike in that way.
I decided the two bottles would be installed on the top seat bar. That leaves the stock location on the front boom empty. What to put there?
I considered quite a few ideas, some of which are more fun and definitely more expensive than others:
1. iHome IH85B (aka 2go or Bike) - $50
A little hard to believe the price hasn't dropped since. This thing basically holds some of the older Apple products like the Ipod and Nano. Includes a speaker and even comes with a remote control to mount to the handlebar! Weighs 2lbs though!
2. Kuats Racks Bottle Lock $33 - shipped
I found this when I was looking for something to fill the water bottle cage space with. Being that it's a cable lock that fits into the volume of a water bottle, it's an awesome and very clean looking concept. Just sorta sucks that the lock is no good. I can see myself using a lock for those brief times I'm hopping into a fast food join for some quick grub. The weight on this thing might bother me too. I don't want to be one of those people weighing down the Speed. The two biggest reasons I picked the Speed out of the other Catrikes in the pride is for the minimal size and weight. I'm not about to offset any of that with heavyweights.
3. Cage Rocket - $10 plus tax
The thing when empty weighs just over 100g. That's miniscule. Honestly though, there's tons of space in the new second generation (not 3rd generation) seat. Holds a pump, plus it has two other pockets that's large enough to hold pretty much anything I'd want to carry along and that includes arm warmers! The reason for getting this though would be more for accessibility of my stuff moreso than the need for additional storage.
All these products have fancy names. I'm not going to elaborate much more on each, but just going to mention I decided with the latter. Part of the reason I chose it was b/c of the price.
Looks pretty clean and it's neat that the color scheme matches. It almost looks like it belongs there.
The thing is basically a storage unit. The black part pops open (w/o having to remove the unit from the cage) to expose space that people can use to store snacks, tools, a camera, MP3 player, phone or whatever other junk we want to carry around.
The thing comes awfully close to the chain! That was my first reaction. I'm bit concerned being that it's almost touching the Cage Rocket while in the middle chainring.
What happens when I pop it into the small one? I'll take it for a test spin later on in the week to see how it works. Maybe this is the reason no one's done this. If there are, perhaps the numbers are few b/c I have yet to see it published on the web. Weird that I've only seen this on someone else's bike/trike 2x. Well known, but maybe not that popular?People know about it but don't buy it. Could it be the $16 price tag??? At least that's what REI wanted to charge as their "regular price." Discounted of course for $10 before tax. Just picked it up today. I don't think I would've spent more than $12 for this thing.
Cool that the thing is padded though. This prevents rattling of anything that's in there. There's a waterproof version that's priced on Amazon for twice as much, but I've found that one reviewer said the normal one does just fine in keeping out moisture. Good enough for me.UPDATE: 1/13/12
I haven't taken it for a spin yet, but put the trike on the rollers and shifted through all the rings to see if there'd be any issues with obstructions to the chain. It does rub a little bit. I shifted the Cage Rocket over to the left a bit and it clears by literally fractions of a mm. Nuts. Works for now. We'll see how it goes on the road.
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