Chris_Mint wrote:
The storage on the downtube is interesting and I am curious about their explanation on the sail in back.
I have two questions about its hydration functionality.
1) How do you refill it on course? From the picture posted here, it looks like the rear of the saddle extends pretty far back over the box, so, at best, you'd have to get a pretty steep attack angle on the bottle to reach wherever the opening is, even if the opening is all the way to the rear. It looks like it could be awkward. Maybe the answer is you don't refill on course, or you use a BTA if supplementing with on-course hydration. But I can easily burn through far more than 2L for a >100 mile bike on a hot day.
2) How do you clean the reservoir and the Roman Aquaduct-length tube? Are they flushable without getting sticky residue over the rest of your components? Even with good practice on flushing, eventually that tube is going to need to be sanitized properly (if I'm using it). Is it easy to remove and re-thread without an hour of profanity? Simply using straight water for hydration is not an option for me, as I prefer my calories liquid.
If bike purchase came down just to comparision of high-volume onboard hydration, the Ventum is winning for me hands down right now, though 1.4L vs. (allegedly) 2.0L. Unless there are really good answers for these two questions.
