how are you supposed to use this thing ? It is not doing me any good and having gatorade all over me after every little pot hole is not fun. I saw someone replaced that by a sponge.
Use a shower poof…or whatever those things are called.
What happened to the yellow spongy thing that came with it? If you lost it, a good fix it to go to the grocery store and get the mesh sponge/dish cleaner things. They’re made out of plastic mesh. If you can find the rectangle ones, they work even better than the one that comes w/ the bottle. If not, I got a few round ones and stuffed them in there. Works great. And, even better, they don’t fly out like the one that comes w/ the kit do.
Fill it less…
Thanks to a previous recommendation on ST, I picked up a 55-mm lens cap that snaps into the opening. It fits perfectly and has a small loop through which I tied a piece of fishing line that I attached to the front plug on the bottle.
I just took the bottle to a camera store. I am not sure who the manufacturer is, but it looks similar to this: http://www.amazon.com/Center-pinch-55mm-snap-keeper/dp/B000OOW81Q/ref=sr_1_8/002-4312545-6601645?ie=UTF8&s=photo&qid=1178722267&sr=1-8
and was about 5.00.
Great idea! I also saw the sponge thing and was going to give that a try. You would have to remove the sponge to refill (unless you filled it very slowly). The mesh stuff is marginally effective especially when the bottle is full.
So how stange was the look you received when you went to the camera store??
I ditched mine a long time ago and learned to drink from a water bottle while staying in the aero position. Much less sticky that way.
I only use my aero bottle for water. My “sticky” stuff goes in the bottle on the downtube.
The mesh thingy doesn’t work very well…I like the lens cap idea!
Get a shower loofah thingy and use it instead of that yellow netting. Get the kind with a little rope on it and wrap it around your straw so you don’t loose it. I bought a couple at target for a buck each. They work great.
Fill it less…
This is the best advice out there. Putting a few less ounces in the bottle worked wonders for me. Every time this thread pops up I’m amazed that people have so much trouble with this thing.
I use a sponge that I made. You don’t have to refill slowly. Simply push the sponge to the side, squeeze in your bottle and go. The sponge returns to covering the opening as soon as you release it. Piece of cake.
Steve
I’ve found that if you take the yellow mesh thing that comes with it, unravel the whole thing so it’s like a big ball of netting and then stuff it into the “top” (wider) part of the aero bottle, you’ll be good to go. Don’t need to remove it to refill and it stops splashing. Using it as it comes from the factory is a waste of time.
No this is not a solution, I want to fill it to its fullest capacity to have enough fluids with myself without hanging another bottle on the back of my saddle.
I don’t know why they didn’t provide a lid for non-racing situations. Even for races, a non-threaded lid that hangs to the body of the bottle would give you a better peace of mind than worrying about the sponge everytime you want to refill. You have to unscrew the lid on the bottles that you get from your aid stations anyways.
This looks harder and slower to refill than just removing a lid pouring it in and put the lid back.
I was just talking to my LBS about this yesterday and I agree, why hasn’t profile made a cap to put on the dang thing while training?! Obviously the majority of the time we’re riding we’re not refilling from aid stations so the splash guard is worthless. Come on Profile, give us a cap!!!
Which is pretty much what Profile tells you to do in the instructions…
http://www.profile-design.com/pdf/Aerodrink_Syst_042103a.pdf
Well, what do you know? I figured the thing was simple enough to figure out that I think my instructions never left the bag.
Plastic wrap and a rubber-band!
I make the hole big enough to fit the top of a water bottle with a pull-up valvue. I just squirt it in and go. I do like to lens cap idea though, I’m going to look into that one.
K