Clever thinking, but frustrating in practicality. Review by Iain Treloar
As a standalone entity, Fabric hasn’t been around for long. But trace their lineage back, and you’ll discover they’re an off-shoot of well-loved British bike brand Charge. This is a design team that has done some innovative things – we’re talking stuff like 3D printed titanium dropouts and collaborations with Airbus – so they’ve got runs on the board when it comes to fresh thinking.
Now they’re the latest to set out to reinvent the drink bottle cage – by doing away with it altogether.
Let’s pause for a moment and consider the bottle cage. In principle all but unchanged for decades, it silently gets on with the thankless job of carrying your fluids around. It rarely ejects your bottles. It doesn’t weigh much. It’s mostly easy to use. It’s safe, familiar, reliable.
Fabric’s reinterpretation of this product revolves around two plastic studs installed in the usual spots, and a proprietary 600ml bottle with two grooves into which these studs slide, securing bottle to bike. It looks super tidy, is very light, and will please the design-conscious.
In my testing, I was hitting every pothole I could find, in the hope of dislodging the bottle. I didn’t, so that side of the design brief works quite well.
Unfortunately, that’s about where the upsides stop. Firstly, it’s an OK rather than a great bottle. I’m a gulper – get it in, get it done – and the flow-rate of this was too slow for my liking. The back half of the bottle has a semi-rigid spine, so you can’t really squeeze it much to encourage a quicker flow.
That firm back of the bottle is where the grooves lie, which leads to my other main gripe with the product. A drink bottle cage can accept a drink bottle in any orientation, guiding the bottle into itself from the top. The Fabric cageless drink bottle requires precise alignment on a small target that you have to reach further down for. It gets easier with practice, a bit, but as soon as you’re hammering along or in more technical terrain it quickly becomes something bordering on an unreasonable ask. I’d find that I’d just skip taking a drink altogether – too much faffing about, too much potential for disappointment.
I like the intention here, and it’s a clever idea. But in the real world, any product that actively deters you from doing what it’s designed for is not a good product. Chalk another win up for the carry-over champ, the bottle cage.
For more details or to buy, monzaimports.com.au
Function: 14/40
Quality: 19/40
Price: 8/10
Appearance: 8/10
Overall: 49%
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