Review

Velo Moderniste Water Bottle Cage

Water bottle cages, for a cyclist, are often just an afterthought or two, wrapped in aluminum, plastic or carbon. They aren't always necessary and as often as not are either cheap and boring, or overpriced and over-designed.

The Velo Moderniste cage (which can be found at the Velo-Orange website or at other locations on the web) is not an afterthought. Neither is it dull or expensive.

This is the Mobius strip of water bottle cages. It relies on a single, polished line that loops back around itself to define both its shape and its purpose. Viewed on the left, my Moderniste is attached to my brushed-aluminum Specialized Langster, and it's holding a classic-looking stainless steel bottle (also available at Velo-Orange).

With its long, curving lines, the cage is a fair representation, consciously or not, of Streamline Moderne, a style emphasizing curving forms and long horizontal lines. It was born out of what some at the time considered the false modernity of the Art Deco design.

Here in Los Angeles, where I live, a stirling architectural example would be the Pan Pacific Auditorium, if it hadn't been torched in 1989. The classic Airstream trailer is another example mating recreation, transportation and architecture.

Thus there would seem nothing at this point in the early 21st Century that is particularly modern about the Moderniste water bottle cage, except that it embodies, in its elegantly simple, flowing lines, the rejection of the traditional in art and architecture. It lives up to the cliche that "form follows function." In that sense, then, the cage is thoroughly modern, and as Velo-Orange puts it: "The minimalist design looks just right on both retro and contemporary bikes."

How does the Moderniste work in practice? As it should. There is no need to fear a water bottle will ever liberate itself from the cage.

(As of this blog, the Velo Moderniste is out of stock at the Velo-Orange website. Poke around the rest of the Web, and a Moderniste might be forth coming.)