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Profile Aero Drinks System

I was wondering if anyone knows anywhere you can get a straw for one of the profile aero drinks bottle.

My girlfriend has lost mine after tidying up and I don't really want to buy a whole new system just for the straw.

Comments

  • risris Posts: 1,002
    £3! looks like a bit of brewers tube to me, about 10p a m.

    to be fair though, brewers plastic tubing tastes god awful for the first few times you use it, but if the drink is flavoured then its ok. i made my own aero-bar bottle arrangement with an sis water bottle, some brewers tube and some plastic discs cut on the office laser cutter. it's not posh but does a job.
  • Ris , did i see you on Blue Peter?
  • Conehead wrote:
    Its the 'flexible' type rather than the hard/sharp one you get with the profile design bottle, which you also stab yourself in the face with when you hit a bump whilst taking a drink.
    It's not just me then.
  • risris Posts: 1,002
    too much trifle wrote:
    Ris , did i see you on Blue Peter?
    i'm of the generation that still has a thing for janet ellis thanks to that programme! i'm fairly handy with some sticky-backed plastic and an old ice-cream tub
  • nivaghnivagh Posts: 595
    I have tried rigging a tube from my frame mounted water bottle to my bars, but found it difficult to suck hard enough to get a reasonable drink! Not so much a problem on a sprint, but I'm doing my first OD this year and hoping to get it sorted for then as I hate holding a drinks bottle on the bike and craning my neck to get a decent gulp.
  • md6md6 Posts: 969
    nivagh wrote:
    I have tried rigging a tube from my frame mounted water bottle to my bars, but found it difficult to suck hard enough to get a reasonable drink! Not so much a problem on a sprint, but I'm doing my first OD this year and hoping to get it sorted for then as I hate holding a drinks bottle on the bike and craning my neck to get a decent gulp.
    If you hold the bottle upside down then you just need to turn your head slightly (like breathing in the swim) and can squeeze some drink in the side of your mouth...

    Re the aero bottle - there was something advertised in 220 this month (or last) which has the bottle in its notmal place on the frame with a long tube - nivagh are you selling these things?
  • i'm of the generation that still has a thing for janet ellis thanks to that programme! i'm fairly handy with some sticky-backed plastic and an old ice-cream tub
    too much trifle wrote:
    Ris , did i see you on Blue Peter?
    Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Janet Ellis
  • nivaghnivagh Posts: 595
    Re the aero bottle - there was something advertised in 220 this month (or last) which has the bottle in its notmal place on the frame with a long tube - nivagh are you selling these things?
    Nope - couldn't get it to work! (yet...!) Maybe if it was from a bottle mounted behind the saddle I wouldn't have to fight gravity in the tube. I'm using the tube out of my platypus, so still needs some development, though since it's triathlon kit, even if it's sh1te I can make a mint.

    I'd better make it in red.
  • You;re not forming a vacuum in the bottle are you, which is preventing the uptake of fluid. It's slightly different in a bladder as they compress. Just a though. If it works, no charge.
  • jibby26jibby26 Posts: 261
    There are some fluid flow equations which govern all this. Something to do with the pressure drop down a pipe of diameter d and length l as far as I can remember. Basically if the tube is too long then you can never generate a low enough pressure in you mouth to draw fluid through it (why those super long straws we all made as kids never worked).

    There is an online calculator at http://www.efunda.com/formulae/fluids/c ... iction.cfm

    I wouldn't recommend rear mounting either, could get a bit annoying if you end up siphoning you drink out and can't stop it.
  • Have you tried 'priming' it first, i.e. sucking up through the straw to fill it up before you start cycling so most of the hard work is done before you start cycling? If you can't suck out of the bottle even when stopped then the straw is probably too well sealed coming out of the bottle and you're not leaving any place for air to get back into the bottle - if you can't loosen the straw connection you'll either have to punch a small hole in the lid or loosen off the top of the bottle a good bit. Mind you if you do that too much then you'll lose the liquid level in the straw every time you stop drinking - Hmm, might need a small mouthpiece at the end of the straw that only opens when you suck on it... God, you can tell I'm an engineer, can't you
  • found this thread and sounds like it would be of interest to something I am trying to do.

    Aim of game, provide hydration without have to get out of aero position and fiddle with bottle and cage.

    Initial plan was to put 500ml bottle on bike in water cage, use hollowed out top of water bottle mouthpiece as output for pillaged bladder pack feeder tube with bite on/off flow system, so after initial priming of tube the bite on/off will stop the liquid flowing back down tube into bottle. Problems, bottle needs to be airtight otherwise air will escape allowing liquid back down tube and meaning it has to be primed every time.

    Talking to motorbike fundi, suggested just going the whole hog, do away with water bottle and cage. Buy 5.99 bladder and tube, go to B&Q (other hardware stores available) by carbon fiber and epoxy as per the great http://sheldonbrown.com/rinard/carbonqa.htm. apparantly it's easy to build a small well at bottom of down and seat tube, house £5.99 bladder pack and have feeder tube with bite on/off shutoff system as well. This gets around air tight issue as bladder and tube is designed for this usage, added benefit of have lower center of gravity, and if I going to be bothered to worry about 50mm deep rims when I only avg 35km/h then may as well think aero disruption with regards to bottles.

    Essentially I am not going to be winning any IM's or in fact any other distance, but the whole bike thing is a bit of a boy's fiddling thing anyway (not that kind) so if it saves me sitting up, fiddling with bottle out of cage, gulping as much as I can in 1 go because can't be bothered to do the whole operation too many times and then crashing into something because the bottle won't go back into the cage. Then I figure the fun I will have sticking bits of my fingers together with expoxy and carbon will be well worth it.

    If anyone has done this before, do let me know as I suspect I am going to get shouted at for spending too much time in the garage with a toy instead of proper housework, or quality time together with the good lady.
  • ZacniciZacnici Posts: 1,385
    Ah a fellow tinkerer

    I have seen guys with 4 bottles; bottles on the seat tube, down tube and 2 on a behind seat carrier. A long distance event is littered with bottles dropped or 'pinged' from behind seat carriers so yep something to be considered.

    How big is the bladder? Considerations; sweat rate average 1l hour, 1l water = 1kg

    Anything over 2hours or so and you need to think about refilling if a 2l bag.

    My solution on a long distance event - aero bottle between aero bars, concentrated 'syrup' of energy/electrolyte drink in bottle on down tube. Approach feed station one squirt of syrup into empty/depleted aero bottle, pick up water or energy drink (usually v diluted), empty into aero bottle, dump empty bottle.

    Good luck and post some pics
  • jcs356jcs356 Posts: 37
    A friend of mine did exactly as Zacnici said above for Half Ironman - ultra-concentrated drink on frame diluted with water from the pitstops.
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