Do insulated bottles actually work?

[Likes2ridefar]

What is significant? I tested chill vs ice vs polar a few years ago filled with ice water sitting on my counter inside, checking with an instant thermometer each hour and there wasn’t much difference with matching ice weighed to the gram and same amount of water.

I wish I kept the results..

[yinzerniner]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

What is significant? I tested chill vs ice vs polar a few years ago filled with ice water sitting on my counter inside, checking with an instant thermometer each hour and there wasn’t much difference with matching ice weighed to the gram and same amount of water.

I wish I kept the results..

Was this you?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Velo/s/TnhnaUnWAR

But seems to validate others results. While the Podium Ice outperformed the Chill by a decent margin (~50% better) that still only kept water at a moderately cold temp for about 90mins without direct sunlight. Pretty sure that time would halve in direct sunlight. Ice would help a bit but IME with bottles having direct sunlight on them the ice melts pretty quickly.

[Likes2ridefar]

No but I had very similar results. Conclusion as you allude to is it doesn’t matter in most scenarios which insulated bottle you use.

[Likes2ridefar]

Should add the polar and the ice were neck and neck with the podium chill being slightly less insulating as seen in the Reddit link.

[54ny77]

camelback insulated. here's the trick for hot days: fill it at least halfway with water (or add a splash of your favorite sports drink) and leave in freezer overnight. key is at least half the bottle is frozen. that will last a good long while.

if you ride with two bottles on hot days like i do, i ride with one regular and 1 insulated, fill both to almost full and leave in freezer overnight. the regular bottle melts steady over the first hour or so and then the insulated bottle is perfect after 1.5 hours and is halfway melted, leaving me with nice cold liquid.

that covers me for 3 or so hours on a hot day wherever i may be.

[Likes2ridefar]

Thx never done that and I’m curious if the arizona sun disagrees

If I fill my two insulated bottles completely with ice then water and go ride the first bottle will be air temp by when I finish it, and when I move to the second bottle it’s usually not cold at all…maybe cool.

[RoosterCogset]

Originally Posted by 54ny77

camelback insulated. here's the trick for hot days: fill it at least halfway with water (or add a splash of your favorite sports drink) and leave in freezer overnight. key is at least half the bottle is frozen. that will last a good long while.

if you ride with two bottles on hot days like i do, i ride with one regular and 1 insulated, fill both to almost full and leave in freezer overnight. the regular bottle melts steady over the first hour or so and then the insulated bottle is perfect after 1.5 hours and is halfway melted, leaving me with nice cold liquid.

that covers me for 3 or so hours on a hot day wherever i may be.

A variation on this is to fill halfway, then lay the bottle almost flat in the freezer, but tilted up a little bit to keep ice from forming around the nozzle. Makes it a bit easier to squeeze along the length of the bottle vs trying to squeeze only the top half (since bottom is solid ice).