Sailcloth CamelBak Bladder Holder

My Ghisallo, somewhere in Arizona

Background

In Autumn 2002, when I had my 650c Litespeed Ghisallo frame custom made, I asked Litespeed to put in two extra waterbottle bosses, one on the downtube and the other on the seattube at the same height, way above the traditional location for waterbottle bosses, so I could string a horizontal steel cable inbetween them as shown below:


My Ghisallo, somewhere in New Jersey

When I received the brand-new frame in the Spring of 2003, I noticed Litespeed forgot to put in the two extra bosses, and I had to have it sent back. Such are the delays before ideas come into fruition! My original idea was to have the sub-triangle formed by the down and seat tube plus the steel cable wrapped or covered to form a simple, ultra-lightweight and easy-to-use storage compartment for my 2 liter Camelbak bladder.

Motivation

As someone who frequently participates in long distance events, although I appreciated the concept and convenience of the drink bladder system, I did not want all that water weighing down on my shoulders for a dozen hours or more. On my previous bike, my solution was to use a Bike Nashbar triangle bag nestled in the lower part of the main triangle of the bike frame.

The Design

However, I wasn't truly satisfied with the Bike Nashbar bag, and from time to time I kept thinking about a much neater and sleeker solution. The opportunity came along when I decided to order a new custom frame. Hence the horizontal steel cable on my Litespeed Ghisallo, designed to frame and hold up a minimalist drink bag.

The next problem was how to get an appropriate drink bag fabricated. Originally, I thought of getting a square of silver emergency blanket mylar to simply wrap around the frame. Can't get any lighter than that. However, mylar tears easily, and it is difficult to glue properly or attach velcro to it. I also experimented with multiple layers of kitchen cling film (Reynolds Wrap), as well as heat-shrink film from an arts supply store. But all of these turned out to be too delicate for use on a bike. And, in any case, the whole thing looked very homemade and out of place on a multi-thousand dollar frame.

I even did some research on getting suitable lightweight kite material. But I wasn't looking forward to the idea of stitching the whole thing up together myself with very much enthusiasm. I ended up going to Paris in August for Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP), still with the Nashbar bag in place.

Sailmaker To The Rescue

Eventually, a friend came up with the solution shown here. His idea was to have an expert like a sailmaker make a single-piece wrap out of waterproof, super-lightweight sailcloth material. The wrap folds around the downtube to meet at the steel wire. The horizontal top edge is held together by velcro and supported internally by the steel cable strung across the frame. The velcro parts to conveniently admit a drink bladder from the top. Now, pulling and replacing the bladder is a simple task that takes only a few seconds - a nice bonus for quick changes at stops.

Also sewn in are a few other pieces of velcro at the seattube. This is apparent from the white stitching in the pictures above. Critical areas are also strategically reinforced with extra material. It can all be removed in under 30 seconds.

Professionally made in South Jersey, the cost was around $100. I received it in October 2003, nearly a year after the start of the project.

Some tricky details are in the sizing. A custom template had to be used, especially with regard to the cutout for the front derailleur. My friend also decided to extend the original minimalist concept to enclose the gap between the seattube and the rear wheel. Not sure I'm going to keep this extension.

Sandiway Fong
Tucson AZ
October 24th 2003