The Santa Cruz Bottle Cage was designed to complement Santa Cruz frames by echoing the brand principles of functionality and simplicity. The cage is made from carbon fiber frame off-cuts and available in a left and right hand versions. We wanted a cage that would be compatible with both Purist bottles and Camelbak bottles, side entry, and hold the bottle very securely so it wouldn’t be bounced out of the cage at any point during a ride.
Through dozens of prototypes we fount that small lips and ramps where the bottle would first enter the cage made it considerable easier to get the bottle in and seated correctly. Below are some early renders of the bottle cage trying out a few graphics treatments. The graphics where designed to compliment a design that was being kept as simple as possible to add the frame it is installed on, rather than becoming a focal point. You can also see the ramps to lead the bottle in in the images below.
Below are some of the 3D prints and prototypes we made for this project. We found that carbon reinforced nylon FDM prints could support the weight of a full bottle if printed a little thicker than the design thickness. This was very useful for rapid iterations. We were also able to 3D print prototype tooling and lay up carbon bottle cage prototypes in house at Santa Cruz. While they still looked rough, these prototypes were valuable in helping us get the amount of pre-load clamp holding the bottle dialed in using the correct material instead of guessing.
