The insulated water bottle I've been using for years,
a Polar Bottle (that's what the old distributor used to call it)
has had its drinking spout plastic break.
Since we switched to a new distributor, the Polar Bottle
(that's what the current distributor calls it)
now has cap parts available separately, so
I'll order one of those eventually, but
I had bought a current model because it has a Wolf Tooth design on it,
so I'm just going to borrow the cap from that one.
Using the cover for the drinking spout is optional,
but I won't be using it.
I've attached the new bottle's cap to the old bottle.
The name of the cap from the first bottle as a spare part is
"Polar Bottle Sport Replacement Cap," and
this cap with the red drinking spout is
"Polar Bottle Breakaway Replacement Cap."
And while I just wrote that these caps are available,
when I checked just now, not only is the distributor out of stock,
but they're no longer accepting orders for them at all.
Not that it matters to me, but
the cover that goes over the Breakaway cap
is called the
"Breakaway Replacement Muck Guard,"
and it comes in silver and charcoal,
and those are still available for purchase.
The old model from when it was called the Polar Bottle,
but it has many small round depressions on the inside,
and if you put sports drinks or similar beverages in it
and neglect to wash it immediately after use,
mold will quickly grow in those holes.
So I made it a rule to only put water and ice
in my Polar Bottle.
In the current Polar Bottle,
those interior depressions are gone.
Whether they decided the insulation performance doesn't change
even without the depressions,
or whether the performance is slightly worse
but they eliminated them because mold grows more easily,
I don't know the reason.
As often happens with performance road bike components,
a spec change doesn't always mean
an across-the-board improvement.
The 7900 rear derailleur
has worse shifting performance than the 7800,
and there are plenty of examples from all manufacturers
where a model change has actually made
the structural design worse for wheels.
With lightweight tuning parts that sell on weight savings,
they almost always get heavier after the initial production run.
So regarding this bottle's spec change, I'm inclined to think
"they traded a slight drop in insulation performance
for resistance to mold growth."
And the action I should take based on that is
"to try the new bottle and
test the performance difference with the old one."
So I'm going to hold off on using
the old bottle with the new cap
and just try the new bottle normally instead.
I probably won't write about the results.
a Polar Bottle (that's what the old distributor used to call it)
has had its drinking spout plastic break.
Since we switched to a new distributor, the Polar Bottle
(that's what the current distributor calls it)
now has cap parts available separately, so
I'll order one of those eventually, but
I had bought a current model because it has a Wolf Tooth design on it,
so I'm just going to borrow the cap from that one.
Using the cover for the drinking spout is optional,
but I won't be using it.
I've attached the new bottle's cap to the old bottle.
The name of the cap from the first bottle as a spare part is
"Polar Bottle Sport Replacement Cap," and
this cap with the red drinking spout is
"Polar Bottle Breakaway Replacement Cap."
And while I just wrote that these caps are available,
when I checked just now, not only is the distributor out of stock,
but they're no longer accepting orders for them at all.
Not that it matters to me, but
the cover that goes over the Breakaway cap
is called the
"Breakaway Replacement Muck Guard,"
and it comes in silver and charcoal,
and those are still available for purchase.
The old model from when it was called the Polar Bottle,
but it has many small round depressions on the inside,
and if you put sports drinks or similar beverages in it
and neglect to wash it immediately after use,
mold will quickly grow in those holes.
So I made it a rule to only put water and ice
in my Polar Bottle.
In the current Polar Bottle,
those interior depressions are gone.
Whether they decided the insulation performance doesn't change
even without the depressions,
or whether the performance is slightly worse
but they eliminated them because mold grows more easily,
I don't know the reason.
As often happens with performance road bike components,
a spec change doesn't always mean
an across-the-board improvement.
The 7900 rear derailleur
has worse shifting performance than the 7800,
and there are plenty of examples from all manufacturers
where a model change has actually made
the structural design worse for wheels.
With lightweight tuning parts that sell on weight savings,
they almost always get heavier after the initial production run.
So regarding this bottle's spec change, I'm inclined to think
"they traded a slight drop in insulation performance
for resistance to mold growth."
And the action I should take based on that is
"to try the new bottle and
test the performance difference with the old one."
So I'm going to hold off on using
the old bottle with the new cap
and just try the new bottle normally instead.
I probably won't write about the results.