It all started when I borrowed a roommate’s mountain bike 27 years ago and never looked back. I was hooked on riding mountain bikes. My passion only has grown since I discovered bike packing 5 years ago and began adventuring on multi day bike packing adventures.
I came up with gear blocks with the need for more purposeful ways to carry my gear on the bike. Everyone has their own style and ways which are constantly evolving. I have to say I change something on my rig every time I go out as I gain knowledge and adapt to the conditions.
I realized quite soon when I started bikepacking that carrying gear on your back is not ideal. For 12+ hour days any weight on the body will cause discomfort and fatigue limiting the riders ability to travel farther and faster.
My riding grounds are in sunny southern, CA which have mild winters, but can be quite hot and dry in the summer. I quickly found out that carrying water on the bike is a big deal. Some desert stretches may require 8 or more liters of water over a 24 hour period. This ultimately means that something has to go on those fork legs.
Bikepacking has appealed to me in many ways including being able to ride aggressively over rough terrain even with a loaded Bike. I prefer a straight bar bike with front suspension. I tried mounting large commercial cages with water and did not like the overbearing feeling of the load on the handling of the bike. Ironically I had a traditional bottle cage break on a trip which resulted in me strapping the bottles directly to the frame and forks Viola! I realized there’s another way….
Enter 3D printing, engineering nerdery. We’d had 3D printers for years but it wasn’t until a few years ago that it was accessible to individuals. I got started printing at home and designing my own parts for all sorts of projects. It just so happens that the need intersected perfectly with my riding and Bike-packing habit. The Bottle-Blocks are printed on an Ender 3 V2 printer from PLA in my home. It takes roughly 12 hours to make a single block! For the last few weeks I have been printing up blocks about 2 per day.
Journey:
I realized after a training ride on Main Divide, Motorway trail, that I had something, when the bottles survived a grueling passage. Thoughts kept running through my head for the next several weeks. On my daily bike commute the idea to promote and sell a kit came to fruition. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I am not normally the entrepreneurial type. I work a daily engineering job as a “Company” man and that’s how I’ve always seen it. This project is me standing up me saying hey! I have some thing here! Wanna buy it! So here we go…
I hope to grow a small website. Post on social media and grow something. I see the possibility of growing a print farm as demand grows. I could see eventually investing in a patent, injection mold tooling and developing this into a real product! So here we go on the journey! Better yet, it involves some bike riding!