Saw a bunch of those in IM Texas and at Singapore T100. Haven't seen any production products, so I'm assuming they are one-offs. Does seem like those won't be great for handling, but if pros have a legal option to go faster they are going to take it.

Given that the bottle down the trisuit had to be perpendicular to the rider's chest and the bike-mounted version doesn't, I'm wondering if there is a better angle for the bottle. Would love to see aero testing at horizontal, vertical, and 45deg.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Yes, these set ups are a lot more dangerous. To my opinion they look worse too. Bottles dont fly out of jerseys, they don't interfere with bike mounting, they don't upset the balance of the bike, they don't inhibit safe movement of your arms. All of these new solutions do these things.

I only see two rationales behind this rule:

1-The people making the rules are dumb, and know nothing about sporting rules and how people will loophole, push, and twist the words to maximize speed at the cost of any aesthetic. (reading the actual wording of the rule this is most likely, it's written by a high schooler trying to sound smart)

2-Jersey bottle is $1.99 to Aquafina, new rules are $700 to Evolve or Wattshop or AeroCoach. The jersey bottle was a threat to their business. Wouldn't be surprised if calls were made to governing bodies lobbying for this new rule.

Canyon has a thingy to mount the bottle high like that. I have only seen it tested once, in the A2 tunnel for everyone's favorite athlete. Was not faster for him. Of course YMMV and 99.9% of the people doing it will do so because they have an imaginary explanation of why it's faster.

Now that I think about it, maybe he smacked his rib testing it

I agree. I really don't see why it was an issue that was worthy of a "BAN". It is a way to carry extra water on the bike and it also doesn't create a safety issue. Why is it banned as an aero upgrade when we have aero chainrings, solid disc wheels, aero helmets?

I know rules are rules, but this is one of those odd rules that seems reserved for golf.

Highly doubt this is the reason.

For one the accessory companies are small fish. If anything the acceptance of them is more likely the reality of hundreds of customers having spent a bunch of money that the officials would rather not screw over and make angry. Not that they care about protecting those companies ability to sell pricey stuff.

The ban is idiotic. You have pros with $2000+ custom carbon bars that you can replicate with 50c worth of duct tape. I don't get why Ironman needs to align themselves with UCI and WT on these ridiculous rules.

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What's your CdA?

In some respects, the new rule has forced at least one pro to get creative with bottle placement - Here's Marquardt with what looks like enough bottles to not have to bother stopping at any aid station. I'm surprised that at least the one on the frame isn't aero.

I'd be curious to know if the lower and angled approach is any better / neutral vs only having one BTA and the other down the jersey. As an aside, how does he get them to stay?

Replying to my own post, but I tried out a few Marquardt type setups this evening. My goal was to see if I can replicate the effect of a bottle down the shirt without it feeling dangerous - don't worry this was on the trainer.

I started with having 1 bottle much as he has his bottom one (angled and down) and from there raised the bottle until it was almost to my chest.

What I found was that the lower setups felt the least safe - I couldn't get over a bottle pointed at my groin. While the higher version at least didn't feel quite that way - it at least felt more like a bottle down the shirt. I suspect though that this is actually the more dangerous. At least with the lower version there's a chance I can just skip over the bottle while the higher version is more likely to skewer.

The higher setup did feel harder to get on the bike but I suspect that was just me being on the trainer.

Not sure I'll keep it or not - if I can fit another bottle I don't need to stop at a 70.3 for aid stations, but I can likely do the same thing with an aero bottle on the frame.

No, the industry was taken by surprise. Jimmy R fielded a lot of calls and not just from the small players (aerobar makers) - big bike brands too.

I think the next generation of rules will be much clearer

I know when I tested on my Scott plasma a round bottle was only at most a 2w ding at yaw angles.




This would be really fun set of tests to do with a group of people. Would be interesting to see if the results were all over the board or trended a certain way.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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