Do you run a bottle behind the seat?

1 bottle bta
1 bottle behind the seat
Have two bottles at special needs ready, though you can't 100% count on it
Use on course aid stations

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Do you use an aero bottle on the down tube? If so, do you still feel that's too much of a penalty?

I agree with the previous poster, you'd probably need to go with 1-2 bottles BTS, but I personally wouldn't want to be messing with a BTS bottle anytime I needed calories.

I keep water in a BTA bottle (refilled as needed) and calories in an aero bottle on the down tube, with a 2nd calorie bottle in SN. I keep a single cage BTS in case I want to stash an extra water bottle there.

I used a similar setup, but with a behind the seat bottle instead of the down tube bottle in a recent IM.

There was an aid station every 45min on the bike, which I used to refill the BTA bottle. Used the BTS bottle as back up.

I have the fflat kit also BTS.

I wouldn't change anything for the next race.

I have 1 BTA bottle (x-lab torpedo) and two BTS bottles. I drink my calories (tailwind or infinite) from my BTA bottle. I start the race with 1 hour's worth of drink mix in the BTA bottle. I then have one bottle of sludge mix tailwind or infinite behind the seat. I squirt a quarter of that in the BTA every hour and dilute it with water at the aid stations. That means I have my calories covered by the BTA and one of the BTS bottles. I use the extra BTS cage for water that I grab from the aid station. That way i have clean water to spray on myself, dillute the BTA, and to drink as needed. I keep a spare sludge mix of calories in my special needs in case something happens to the one I start out with, but that is only a back up and I skip special needs if I don't need it.

During training when I am practicing my nutrition plan, I use the same set up but add down tube and seat tube bottles with water in them replicating what I would be grabbing from the aid stations.

What is the aero penalty (in time....for an IM) for the downtube bottle?

550 an hour?!? that's an IronGutâ„¢

550/hr?! If you take 5 hours to do the bike, you're basically eating a days worth of food while racing... I've never heard of such a high amount

The penalty on the run when you don't drink/eat enough is huge :)

It depends on your setup ...e.g. how easy you can access the rear cages and stuff like that and if you are using on course nutrition or not etc. If you have to stand up and mess around with rear bottles, fill a BTA etc. you can easily lose more time than if you just had a down tube bottle that you can access while staying aero or quickly store a bottle you grab at an aid station. If you have to stop at a special needs station to get your super custom nutrition bottles then again... fail.

So I think you have to come up with a strategy that takes into account more than just how aero is a down tube bottle.

Do you drink Gatorade with your gels?

But to answer your question, I use a Torhans aero bottle for the downtube and have all my nutrition in it (concentrated). I have my tire levers, etc in a Torhans bento box, and normally put something I like to eat in there to break up the monotony. The aero bottle doesn't add to the frontal area of the CDA. If it adds drag my gut tells me it will be less of a penalty than trying to get my bike setup to not require it. Got a photo of your bike/aero bottle?

That leaves me one horizontal bottle BTA and one on the back. Depending on the course I sometimes leave that half empty as I may not need it. That one is mostly to avoid getting caught between aid stations gasping for liquid.

Depending on your suit choice, you may find you can put some of your cliff blocks/etc in a back pocket out of the wind.

I think you took my inquiry a bit too seriously. I'm a 12:56;xx IM finisher. I carried 4 bottles with me out of T1 (yes....one on the DT) and picked up 2 more at bike SN.

My point was......if the penalty is 0:01:25 for the DT bottle.......there's likely lower hanging fruit, elsewhere, that would potentially impact your race, less (than bonking or irrationally f-ing up your nutrition plan).

I have no idea what that penalty is -- hence my Q.

I've seen the penalty at IM distance be listed at 2 minutes for a round bottle versus nothing, but it depends on the bottle, your bike frame, etc so no-one is going to be able to give a definitive answer.

2 minutes at MOP is nothing, but at the Kona qualifier position it can be the difference between going and not going

You can always run 2 BTA bottles. See HERE. It'll make the bike handle a little sluggish, but that shouldn't actually slow you down.