Sometimes it’s fun to nerd out on all the crazy technology in our modern bikes, but one of my favorite accessories from recent times is actually the simplest thing on my commuter; the water bottle holder. Last spring I got my hands on a Bike Strap, and I decided it had to be tested right away with a fresh bomber of craft brew. After a boot around town, I got home and found my bomber still tightly secured. At that point, I knew I’d be putting the Bike Strap to use quite often!
The Bike Strap is made by a company called Modeo (who also developed an interesting commute tracking app called Ryde) and it has proven to be a brilliant, functional design that carries a huge range of drink containers (among other things) easily and securely. There’s only one drawback to the design if you’re fussy about appearances…
Explaining the Bike Strap’s construction is pretty simple- It’s a plastic tray with a big Velcro strap attached to it. What is nice to know is that it isn’t cheaply made – the plastic feels strong and hasn’t shown any wear yet for me or our other tester. The 3” wide Velcro strap is also in perfect condition after a year of use. The Bike Strap simply bolts on like any other bottle cage, but carries just about anything you can think of within a bit of reason.
The Bike Strap can accommodate anything up to 5” in diameter, and weighing up to 5 lbs. I didn’t quite push those extremes but definitely tested out many beer bombers, tallboys, growlers, a steel water bottle, and a few other containers with nothing but success. Slick-sided bottles and cans don’t slide upwards in the strap like you might expect, and the strap never loosened up at all while I was riding. It’s got some pretty fierce Velcro.
Besides beer & other bottles, Cory over in Prague has been putting one to good use as well, hauling a different sort of stuff. His most non-standard hauling has been in delivering a burrito on occasion back to the office. Apparently combined with a good wrap job at Burrito Loco, the wide strap kept his lunch secure.
He also spends a lot of time riding and testing cyclocross kit for us. So one of the well known downsides of riding on tubulars outside of racing is that you can’t just patch them on the side of the trail if you get a flat (for the most part anyway.) But in order to get enough kilometers in testing different cross tires and wheels, Cory regular uses the Bike Strap to haul a spare tubular that he can swap in if he punctures far from home. He’s been happy with his spare being more securely mounted than strapped to a regular cage or modified bidon, and having it more out of the way than slug under the saddle with a toe strap. The key takeaway here seems to be that versatility is a nice feature of the strap.
Perhaps the one downside to the Bike Strap’s design is that when you’re not using it, the strap has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is wrapped around your down/seat tube. This didn’t really bother us too much, but if you had a really nice looking commuter I could see this being an aesthetic issue.
Modeo’s Bike Strap isn’t cheap at $40 USD, but ours have proven super handy and very durable. There’s nothing I like more on a summer evening than pedaling out for a few drinks with friends, and the Bike Strap has allowed me to carry any odd bottle I find at the store with ease and the feeling of absolute security. Cheers!
