Andy Stoneman, a husband to Hannah and a Dad to two great girls aged 9 and 11, is a graphic designer and creative director at his own business ‘inspiredby’. Until 2010 Andy was a keen motorcyclist and weighed 18stone. Then approaching 40 he decided to lose some weight and got addicted to running and completed 5 marathons before turning to cycling in 2013. Now aged 41, and 6 stone lighter Andy is mad for anything to do with cycling and usually cycles 300 miles or more each week, is a CAT 3 road racer, Time Trialist, regular sportive participant, and has recently completed the Mallorca 312 event.
In 2013 Andy co-founded Valley Striders Cycling Club (VSCC) with some fellow runners from Valley Striders, a running club based in Leeds, with the aim of providing an alternative sport for injured runners and runners wanting to do some cross training. Now, some 18 months later the club has 200 members and sees it numbers expanding week on week. VSCC provide led rides for beginners through to racers, three times a week and regularly see 60 riders turning up for evening rides at the Thomas Osborne pub in Roundhay,Leeds . The club focuses on being welcoming, providing safe rides and helping to improve riders skills and confidence.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/valleystriderscc/
Andy is also a self confessed cycling kit expert, so we have asked him to review some product for the Ride25 blog over the coming months…. below is the first of those.
“Carbon bottle cages are a waste of money” is what everyone tells you!
The question they always ask is…..
I’ve always gone along with that, after finding that some Scott and Elite carbon bottles cages I had a few years ago delaminated quickly and made a mess of my bottles. Since then I’ve tried many kinds of nylon bottle cages from a wide variety of brands. Most seemed to be either too tight or too loose regardless of what bottles I was using, resulting in bottles being too hard to get out while riding, or bouncing out on fast descents…the last thing you need when flying down a hill at 60mph, or worse still racing in a pack.
Recently I’ve been trying to save some weight on my training bike (2015 Scott Addict 10) and have been shaving grams off here and there. I fitted a Dura-ace 9000 drive train, lighter wheels, carbon railed saddle, lighter stem and eventually it came to needing to knock just 50 grams off in order to nudge the bike under the 7kg mark.
Having just lost a bottle than bounced out of my Bontrager bottle cage on my winter bike, I naturally revisited the bottle cage conundrum. I read up on the reviews and analysed the weights of several cages out there and decided to go with what most recommend as the best and bought a pair of Arundel Mandible cages from Wiggle (£39.60 each), saving a whopping a 52 grams from my bike. I’ve had these fitted for 6 weeks now and have ridden over 2500 miles with them on. In that time they have remained looking as good as new and have easy to use with a variety of bottles. Not once has a bottle bounced out, or even so much as nudged 1mm in an attempt to escape. They’ve not marked my bottles, or lost any of the finish. I’m so happy with them I’ve bought another pair for my race bike.
So, if you looking for the ultimate bottle cage, wanting to save some vital grams, or just need a bottle cage you know is going to keep hold of your bottle I’d suggest you need look no further then the Arundel Mandible. They look great, are a doddle to fit and weight about as much as a post-it note.
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