Bottle cages seem like the simplest component on a bike until you're fumbling for a bottle mid-effort and realize how much the details matter. The Zipp SL Speed Carbon Bottle Cage strips the design down to essentials—38 grams of unidirectional carbon fiber shaped to grip bottles securely while letting you grab and replace them without looking down or breaking rhythm. That's the entire job description, and the cage handles it without drama.

The carbon construction serves two purposes beyond weight savings. The material provides consistent grip pressure across temperature ranges where plastic cages can become either too stiff or too flexible, and it damps road vibration that might otherwise rattle a bottle loose on rough pavement. Zipp shaped the cage with an open side-access design that works whether you're reaching down from an aggressive road position or sitting upright on a gravel bike. The entry angle accommodates bottles coming in slightly off-axis, which matters when you're grabbing hydration at threshold effort and your fine motor control isn't at its best.

Standard two-bolt mounting fits any frame with 64mm bottle cage bosses, which covers essentially every road, gravel, and mountain bike on the market. The SL Speed uses the same mounting interface as Zipp's other cages, so if you're already running their equipment and want to match across multiple bikes, the bolt pattern and aesthetic stay consistent. At 38 grams, this sits at the lighter end of carbon cages without venturing into the fragile territory of ultralight options that sacrifice grip security for another few grams.... Read More