Hydration and the Small Frame

Charlie shares their experience getting enough hydration on their mountain bike.

As any cyclist who’s ever run out of water in the middle of a ride can attest, proper hydration is key to a pleasurable time on the bike. For riders of shorter stature, the challenge of staying hydrated is often compounded by a lack of space for bottle cage mounts on small frames. This problem most frequently manifests on full-suspension bikes when manufacturers sacrifice the space that you’d ordinarily use to mount a bottle cage in order to squeeze in a rear shock. Even when there is enough space for two sets of cage mounts, one or both water bottles often end up inaccessible due to interference with the rear shock. 

While hydration packs have long presented a simple workaround for the lack of bottle cage real estate on frames with smaller front triangles, not everybody enjoys carrying all that extra weight on their body, not to mention the back-sweat and potential for chafing. Thankfully, the smart people at Wolf Tooth Components care about us shorties and have provided us with an innovation that renders the choice between dehydration and discomfort obsolete: the Bottle Relocation and Accessory Device (B-RAD), a modular system that lets you move and add bottle cages and other accessories within your frame’s front triangle. 

The B-RAD system begins with a mounting base, which mounts to an existing set of standard bottle cage mounts. The base comes in three lengths outfitted with two, three, and four slots, respectively. Longer bases let you move your bottle cage further and add more accessories, like mini pumps or tool rolls. On my full-suspension bike, I was less concerned with additional storage than with being able to carry a water bottle on my downtube without it interfering with the rear shock. To that end, I installed a two-slot B-RAD Base and a Half Bottle Adapter, offsetting the water bottle cage to the drive side of the bike and clearing the way for easy access to the bottle without messing with the shock. (NB: Since my initial foray into B-RAD a couple of years ago, Wolf Tooth has added the Bottle Shift mount to the B-RAD lineup, which essentially combines the two-slot base and the Half Bottle Adapter into one product.) Although I was initially concerned that the offset of the Half Bottle Adapter would be too extreme and cause my leg to rub against the bottle cage while pedaling, that reservation has proven to be unfounded; I never notice the repositioned cage during a ride until I realize how wonderfully hydrated I am. 

Sleekly modular, easy to install, and thoughtfully designed, B-RAD presents an elegant set of solutions to the problem of maximizing a bike’s storage capacity. I have found B-RAD to be the best answer to my particular goal of carrying more water, but the system’s applications extend beyond adding additional bottle cages to encompass general storage and organization for tools, pumps, dry bags, and various other sundries. Simply put, if you want to carry more stuff on your bike, consider B-RAD.