These guys have been around for a little while but finally got my hands on a set and thought some on here might be interested. This water bottle mount uses rare earth magnets to secure the bottle bottle mount. Leaves a nice clean look to your bike when the bottle isn’t mounted. The specially made bottle contains a slot in the back that matches the dovetail shape on the bottle mount and is held in place with the magnets. This creates a secure mount, at least as strong as a traditional bottle cage. The bottle mount weighs just 16 grams so it is lightweight as well. Vincero is working on an aero bottle as well. I saw the prototype of this bottle and it looks like a good design for aero applications.
The system
Dovetail in the bottle
The bottle mount shown next to a stick of gum for size reference
Must be a bit of a bummer to lose that bottle though. And of course no joy from aide stations during races. Has a lot of practicallity for Aeroness though if you only need the one bottle for a race or a TT.
I will, I know everyone questions the bottle staying put but from their claims these actually hold tight even on mountain bikes in rough terrain. The magnet is very strong and unless the bump is enough to dislodge the magnet the bottle wont come loose from the dovetail mount.
Very cool design. I had this idea and sketched out several designs a couple years ago and never did much with it. Nice to see someone prove the concept and bring it to market.
I saw this at a show a week ago…nice system. Bottle seems very nice too.
IIRC, it was like $40 for one bottle and the magnet that goes on the frame. Replacement bottles weren’t cheap either.
Would be a great system if it was used across the board, but it kind of eliminates the possibility of using neutral support at a race so not practical for a long race in my opinion.
Also, I wonder how it would hold in a horizontal application, like between your aero bars.
I personally like this product because of it’s innovation and that it’s outside the box thinking. However, as others have pointed out, the market is a little more limited right now.
Replacement bottles are $10, which actually isn’t terrible.
The weight is only 16 grams, and I bet they are as secure as any 16 gram bottle cage.
The one kind of cool thing about it, is that you could buy the edge 16 mount and an aero and regular bottle. Train with the regular bottle and then race with the aero bottle.
I have two of these edge “cages” on my road bike and have had some trouble losing the bottles when they are filled. As nice as it is to have the snap in feature, jostling of the bottles can eventually wiggle these things free and slow up rides. The catch 22 of it all is that you have to be careful to put the bottle back on the magnet properly, or else it will wiggle free. Since the whole idea is to avoid having to search around for the cage in the first place, I’d wish some additional magnets were put in place so that the plastic flex of the filled bottles wouldn’t occasionally rip these off my frame after a pothole or bump in the road.
Just to give you an idea, I lose about a bottle on every other ride I go on unless I’m particularly careful with putting them back on as well as making sure I take all the best lines possible. Bumpy downhill? Forget it, you just lost all your juice cause these aren’t staying on I can guarantee that. Riding in groups this is frustrating and also a bit dangerous… I sincerely wish the magnets were stronger and the plastic was harder so as to avoid this…
I felt I should comment on my previous post by mentioning that it appears Vincero has indeed upgraded to a stronger cage magnet. My initial impression of the product was based on the magnetic cages available nearly a year ago and were carbon-esque in finish and did not have the logos or the magnet itself visible on the surface. The new cages (which I recently just installed) have both the “V” logo and the magnet visible, and are noticeably stronger than the cages I had been cautiously using. After installing and using the new cages, I have to say that they are now very close to what I’d consider an ideal design. All in these new cages are very well done and have substantially improved in function. I’m very happy to have the new magnetic cages on both my bikes.
P.S: My recent comparative “field test” between the two versions of the Vincero cages took place on a 70 mile road ride which included some very shady roads. I had previously noticed that the bottle on the seat tube was the one that most often let the bottles loose, and so with plenty of experience with this already I replaced the “old” seat tube magnetic cage with the “new” version. The setup was thus: one “old” magnet on the down tube and one “new” magnet on the seat tube…
70 miles later:
Old magnet (down tube): lost the bottle twice - once having to stop to go find it in the bushes. I ended up putting this bottle in my jersey after the second launch episode.
New magnet (seat tube - the previously aforementioned “launch pad”): no lost bottles.
This “test” is of course completely subjective, unscientific, and unvalidated - hell maybe the magnets are in fact exactly the same - but whatever, I’m not losing bottles anymore so that’s all that I care about. Maybe it was just a matter of moving the magnet to the surface and not covering it with a thin layer of plastic (like in the first version) so that the magnetic force need not be applied across a greater distance… No idea… Anyway, that’s my experience with the bottles.
I’ll confirm from personal experience that the original design pretty much is useless in terms of having any confidence that the bottle won’t fly off on even fairly minor bumps in the road. I tried mine mounted between the aero extensions on an X-Lab torpedo base, where I was hoping that gravity would at least help keep things more secure, but no such luck. The concept is (was) interesting since the install is very clean, but turned out to be a bad case of form over function. Don’t think I’m going to bother with the improved version, however… not worth needing to use the proprietary bottles. Glad to hear new users might not have as bad of an experience, however…
After reading the above article, it looks like at least one pro has started using these bottles. I’m not sure I’d replace my frame bottles with these, but an interesting concept for a torpedo mount? Also, it appears on their (pretty poor) website that they were at one time looking at creating aero frame bottles, which would solve the issues some users have reported trying to get bottles back into overly stiff, over-priced carbon cages.
Anybody had good success with these since this post died?
This product looks like a great idea… are y’all who got it a while ago still happy with it’s performance? Magnets & bottles holding up OK over time?
Also, can those of you who have this setup please confirm if the Vincero bottles use a standard top? I would be interested in putting a CamelBak Podium top on it, if possible…
