I am definitely interested!

Interested

A quick follow up: The design is finished, I am tweaking the 3d printing details. The surface became quite nice, and hydration system is now flush with the cover:



There will be three options:

- Cover for Canyon X Hydration integration, with some room eg. for a gel
- Cover for Canyon X Hydration integration, otherwise flat
- Just a flat cover eg. for mounting a 3rd party bento box

I'll post pictures of all three options in some days (probably mid/end of October). The capacity of the hydration system in a Felt IA frame size 58 and a Canyon X Hydration 700ml is about 0,5l. The first 0.4l I can squeeze in without any spillage, the last 0.1l need some attention.

Some tipps:
- Get some flexible, food grade silicone tube for the distance between the hydration system and the valve. I have ordered some for myself and will add about 10cm to all covers until it's gone.
- The Canyone blader seems to be reasonably robust, but you might want to wrap some duct tape here and there to let it last longer.
- The cover is designed to be fastened with just one screw. Maybe you need to use a cm of tape in some invisible places to make it 100% rattle free.
- Take your time inserting the hydration system into the frame- I need between 30 seconds and a minute,
- Remove the system asap after the ride. You need to remove most of the fluid to get it out without much mess, and you don't want to do that when your carbs mix got the spark of life after some days.
- If you spill some fluid in the frame while refilling the bladder and want to speed up he drying process , just remove the Di2 cover at the very bottom of the frame:



Inserting a paper towel for some minutes can help.

Price point will be around 40€/$/£ plus shipping from Germany - no plans to put it on Shapeways yet. Material is PETG black, so it should be good for many years. Write me if you need it earlier or in other colors.

Would this work with the previous gen Felt IA (i.e. non-Advanced rim-brake frame)? I can't tell if the Cal Pack area is any different.

The cover should fit on any Felt IA, but I can't promise it. We'll work something out.

To make our lives easier, I have uploaded the models to Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6269991
Have fun :-)

So, is there any reason to think this would work better than the current solutions used by Canyon etc?

From what I am reading here on the forum:
1. You can only refill it using a bottle that has the right size nozzle to push down into the opening, and said bottle has to be able to do that without closing itself when pushing it down in there... So not much chance of getting it quickly refilled by anything you'd grab rolling through an aid station?
2. Also may need to be biting the valve to let air out when trying to refill.
3. Can apparently only use water, not sports drink, unless you want to risk gumming up the system.

Are the above points valid? Again, its just what I have read here on slowtwitch..

Eh... sorry, but I don't get your point. That adapter/cover ist for the Felt IA. To my knowledge, there is no other integrated hydration system available other than the Canyon X Hydrapak plus my cover. The Shiv Fuelselage that many used some years ago is no more. So, you can use this cover plus Canyon, or nothing at all.

I tried refilling with three different bike bottles plus a simple 0.5l water bottle from the supermarket and had had no problems other than described in my postings. They did not close themself, and I did not have to vent. It was just a short test, so maybe these problems will show later. And yes, you have to clean the bladder asap, just like with any other similar system.

So, what do you suggest? What internal system would be better for the Felt IA?

I was simply suggesting than the internal bladder solution might not work as well as some hope, regardless of which brand frame you are trying to put it in.

Again, some of that is just what I've read on here, like this thread:

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...mp;post=last-7947031

Edit - to be clear, nothing against Felt either, I've been riding on IA frames for the past 5 years or so. I really don't like the bento box on them, so had looked into the 3d covers/bladders that you could find online, but ultimately just stuck with a BTB bottle etc.