PSA: Why this cheap water bottle is my favourite new winter cycling accessory

I don’t necessarily have the most iron constitution. In fact I have a famously sensitive stomach, but recently I had one of the worst riding experiences of my life. No, it wasn’t a bad crash, or even a driver deliberately close passing me (both of which are awful in their own way as I know from experience). 

On this occasion, coming home from a 200km hilly jaunt into south Wales to pay a visit to some childhood memories, I was struck, 50km from home, by the most catastrophic stomach bug. For a couple of hours, I crawled home, unable to call for rescue due to a combination of my partner being away and my own sheer bloody-mindedness. Stomach cramps, projectile vomiting… so sore was my stomach that I was unable to keep my jersey zipped up, meaning I was also freezing. After getting home, this continued, and then to add insult to injury, afflicted the other end of my system too.

I’ll spare you any other horrible details, but this isn’t the first time it has happened, though this was the worst. I put it down to one thing: Farm effluent. A lot of my riding takes place on rural backroads. They’re more interesting to ride and freer of cars in general, but they often run alongside agricultural land. In the summer, this is rarely an issue, but the first three hours of my terrible Welsh jaunt were in the rain, and a significant part along roads that had recently been covered in manure. This mirrors the previous times this has happened; long, wet rides where your body is more depleted than usual, and an increased risk of effluent making its way onto the mouthpiece of your bottles.

I have learned to be careful. Mudguards are a must for me for any wet rides on the road, not only in order to stay dry but to keep my bottles clean, but even with the best bike mudguards in the world, there’s a non-zero risk of contamination and on gravel I’m often fender-free. As such I took to unscrewing my bottle lids entirely to take a sip, but this often meant I drank less and therefore came home a husk of a man after long winter rides.