I don’t necessarily have the most iron constitution. In fact I have a famously sensitive stomach, but recently I had one of the worst riding experiences of my life. No, it wasn’t a bad crash, or even a driver deliberately close passing me (both of which are awful in their own way as I know from experience).
On this occasion, coming home from a 200km hilly jaunt into south Wales to pay a visit to some childhood memories, I was struck, 50km from home, by the most catastrophic stomach bug. For a couple of hours, I crawled home, unable to call for rescue due to a combination of my partner being away and my own sheer bloody-mindedness. Stomach cramps, projectile vomiting… so sore was my stomach that I was unable to keep my jersey zipped up, meaning I was also freezing. After getting home, this continued, and then to add insult to injury, afflicted the other end of my system too.
I’ll spare you any other horrible details, but this isn’t the first time it has happened, though this was the worst. I put it down to one thing: Farm effluent. A lot of my riding takes place on rural backroads. They’re more interesting to ride and freer of cars in general, but they often run alongside agricultural land. In the summer, this is rarely an issue, but the first three hours of my terrible Welsh jaunt were in the rain, and a significant part along roads that had recently been covered in manure. This mirrors the previous times this has happened; long, wet rides where your body is more depleted than usual, and an increased risk of effluent making its way onto the mouthpiece of your bottles.
I have learned to be careful. Mudguards are a must for me for any wet rides on the road, not only in order to stay dry but to keep my bottles clean, but even with the best bike mudguards in the world, there’s a non-zero risk of contamination and on gravel I’m often fender-free. As such I took to unscrewing my bottle lids entirely to take a sip, but this often meant I drank less and therefore came home a husk of a man after long winter rides.
Now I have in my possession something that is both cheap and genuinely transformative: Bottles with lids. Yes, these are ported over from the MTB world, as those rad lads and lasses are far more well-versed in keeping mud out of their orifices (see also: goggles). These are the Elite Jet Plus bottles, in my favoured 750ml version, but there are plenty on the market that I’ve come across. Elite makes several, as does Camelback with its Podium Dirt model. They rank, to my mind, among the best bike accessories for winter riding.
If you are of a gastrically sensitive persuasion, or you just don’t want to repeat what happened to me, these bottles really are an upgrade that could save you from a pretty horrendous ordeal. In the summer I suspect they’ll get consigned to the cupboard of 10,000 bottles I have in my possession, but I will be running them all winter and beyond until it’s dry.
