Over the past decade, we’ve reviewed 72 bottle cages here on road.cc and this is far and away the most expensive, costing almost 30 per cent more than the next dearest one we’ve featured. Indeed, all but four cost at most half as much as this one does, and in many cases significantly less. Overall, this is a very lovely cage, and the Cerakote protection does appear to work. Obviously it's an insane amount of money, and I'm not even going to try to justify the price, other than to say you'll probably never have to buy another bottle cage again (unless you want to get a second). The only possible negative I can draw, other than the price, is that the coating does diminish the visual appeal of raw titanium somewhat. Verdict While they’re not cheap, Tailfin has created a product with a high level of design, engineering, durability, and finish, and until you actually handle them and fit the SFMs, it’s hard to convey how well made they actually are. We think the SFM is perhaps one of the better and more elegantly designed options we’ve tried for use with a suspension fork. Logan and Virginia recently put nearly 2,000 miles on four pairs in Baja and Oaxaca, with no issues to speak of. If you want the lightest setup possible then sure, they're an easy way to shave off some precious grams for a relatively low price. More than that, they're also an easy way to add a bit of bling. The cage has a similar price tag to its competitors, however it is worth noting that the standard colour options are significantly cheaper.

We rarely see the pros using superlight cages, as often their bikes are under the UCI weight limit as standard anyway, and so adding slightly heavier cages is no big deal and helps them make the legal limit.In the same way, all of us, as consumers, make trade-offs every single day in the products we buy and the services we use – and it seems clear that for many people, in the months and years to come, the actual financial cost will become an increasingly important part of the equation.

The arms held the bottles snugly and adapted well around a variety of different bottles. The lower section of the cage feels quite thin and, though this did not occur whilst testing, feels like it could be easily over-stretched. If you aren’t up for clamping, strapping, or taping mounts to your frame, there are two ways to permanently add bottle bosses to your frame or fork. Hire a Framebuilder While we haven’t tested the Barnacle specifically, we have put some miles on the DeWidget G-Funk Clamps, which are the same design and we have no problem vouching for their performance and reliability. On our scales, the Fly Anodised cage weighed in at 21g, just 2g over the manufacturer’s stated weight, much lighter than similar cages on the market. That being said, as ever there are always some questions that need answering, so having tried a tonne of cages out I'll try my best to answer them below. What bottle cage do pros use?

Adding Permanent Bottle Cage Mounts to Your Frame

Well, first of all the Sicuro cage is made from high-quality 3Al/2.5V titanium, and is hand-bent and laser welded in the USA. It's pretty light (33g on the road.cc scales, just over the claimed weight of 30g) and being titanium it's also pretty tough. Now, as we’ve said previously, price is only one of the things that is taken into account when our reviewers come up with a judgment on whether or not something provides good value – and if you read the review above you’ll see that in reaching the final score a trade-off has been made between what are seen as the product’s plus points, and the cost.

The top of the cage is stiff, designed to maintain the overall structural integrity, whilst the lower half is more malleable so that the cage can be bent to fit different bottles. The Monkii Clip has two round cleats that fit their Monkii cage, Monkii frame bag, or Monkii wedge tool bag. It secures via a hinged clamp to any 25mm-38mm tube, such as frame tube, down tube, handlebar stem or fork leg. It has a maximum Load: 1.5 kg / 3.3 lb. Kit includes one adapter, one M5 25mm screw, one M5 50mm screw, and a rubber shim. The Barnacle by Drj0n Bagworks provides a low-profile mounting option for bottle and cargo cages on the fork, downtube, or other locations on a bike frame. The Barnacle clamp is 3D-printed from durable plastic and comes in nine diameters ranging from 25.4mm to 47mm, designed to fit commonly available downtubes in steel, aluminum, and titanium, and also rigid steel and suspension forks. You can also use rubber strips to help accommodate varied tubes. For example, 45mm with a 1mm rubber strip fits a Fox 34 or a Fox 36 without.Now they are standard BHC screws that can be found everywhere but I would have loved that the ones provided were of better quality.