Bottle cages have a pretty simple remit: to hold waterbottles. Sure, it’s nice if they’re good looking, high tech, or reasonably priced- but all of this is forgotten the moment a bottle goes missing. Lezyne know this and have built what may be the most tenacious bottle cage I’ve come across. Is it the cage for you? Hit the jump to find out!
With its fiber reinforced Composite Matrix construction and 48g (actual) weight, the Flow cage presents well for its $10 price. Sure, Lezyne could have built a lighter cage using the same material- but wanted something for customers focused on performance rather than outright weight. The Composite Matrix material is sturdy enough to take knocks that would bend aluminum cages, without (gasp!) marring your favorite bottle.
Mounted to our Project 24.2 race bike and several rides since, the Flow certainly performs its main function (holding bottles) well. Of course, in order to hold a bottle, a cage first needs to accept one- and thanks to some aggressive retention tabs, this takes a bit of technique. The flow almost needs sneaking up on: approach the cage head-on and bottles will often glance off the tabs. 
Come in at an angle and things are considerably easier. Fortunately, the required angle is a bit more natural once found, only causing problems on small or crowded full suspension frames.
Seeing as our Project 24.2 Rocky Mountain Element had an awfully small main triangle, I ended taking a coping saw to the Lezyne’s retention tabs, then filing the sharp edges. It was a 5 minute job and, even with much of the tabs removed, bottles still snap into place and I have yet to lose one.
The Lezyne Flow is probably the ideal cage for down tube mounting. It holds bottles extremely well, is sturdy, and is more than cheap enough enough to leave in the path of flying rocks. It would also be perfect for heavy cage-mounted light batteries, like those used by Lupine. For more normal use, however, I found that the Flow often wants my bottle more than I do.
marc
