Bottle Grab grows cycling by making racing a more enjoyable undertaking by improving rider performance and reducing the stressors of coordinating feed zone support. It saves costs for organizers and provides opportunities for branding, but what else does it do?
It Enables Amateur Racers
Bike racing can be daunting for new comers and experienced racers alike. There’s a lot to juggle on race day, and numerous problems can derail a performance such as a flat tire, a mechanical, or a crash to name a few. Improper race day nutrition will leave the best of racers unable to perform – racers need to consume carbohydrates, fluids, and electrolytes while riding. Riders need at least one bottle of water with electrolytes per hour in a bike race, and the vast majority of bike racers opt to consume their carbohydrates by drinking bottles full of dissolved carb mixes. Bottle Grab allows for amateur racers to refuel and get the bottles they need in a race without any hassle. No need to drag your girlfriend to the middle of nowhere at 5 am to hand you bottles every hour. No need for a teammate’s dad to juggle bottles for the entire team spread across different fields. No risk for getting someone else’s bottle with a mix that doesn’t work for you. No need to worry about a soigneur missing or mistiming your hand-off. Bottle Grab enables racers to compete in and perform at any race, whether it be on the road, gravel, or mountain bike.
It Prevents the Need to Stop in a Gravel Race or a Grand Fondo
As mentioned earlier, gravel races are typically long. Most gravel races feature aid stations with bars, gels, and drinks at a rider’s disposal and included in their race entry fee. The problem with these is that riders need to stop at the aid stations to get any of the available nutrition. This leads inevitably to some racers not stopping to avoid lost time or to get an advantage on their competition. Meanwhile, others need to stop to fill up a bottle or get a bar, and they are left waiting for another group to join or on their own to fight their way back into the race. Grand Fondos on the other hand are not races and don’t involve the same rush out of the feed zone. However, there are still inconsistencies in how long riders want to stop or if they want to stop at all.
Bottle Grab allows participants in gravel races and Grand Fondos to refuel while riding and prevents the inconsistencies that arise with stopping at aid stations. Race organizers are able to set up several Bottle Grabs at aid stations that can be restocked by aid station staff to refuel all event participants while riding.
In professional gravel racing, stopping at feed zones has evolved from a casual stop to a gentleman’s etiquette type agreed upon time limit to a full on F1 style pit stop. It is now seriously crazy, and stress levels for riders and staff are through the roof – it’s probably the most stressful part of the race. Bottle Grab prevents the need to stop riding and rush as fast as possible to refuel, and it gives riders an equal playing field regardless of their levels of support and desperation to get out of the feed zone. Often times, riders need to have maintenance done on their bikes in long gravel races, like the Unbound 200. Bottle Grab allows bottles and nutrition to be readily accessible to riders when they do need to stop at an aid station.
Cameron Jones, winner of the 2025 Unbound 200, didn’t stop at both aid stations during the race. Instead, he took two massive feed bags at each and stuffed bottles and food onto his bike and into his pockets while riding. His parents handed them off to him.
Pete Stetina and Petr Vakoč pulled into the first aid station at around mile 70 of the 2023 Unbound 200 to their team Canyon support station.
Justin McQuarry broke down both of his feed zone experiences while racing the pro men’s field at the 2024 Unbound 200.
It Improves Bottle Hand Off Success Rate
Even when a racer has a soigneur in the feed zone to hand off their bottles, the rider doesn’t always come away with a bottle. Feed zones are chaotic, soigneurs aren’t always paying attention, riders sometimes can’t find their soigneur, and the hand off isn’t always executed well enough. Bottle Grab allows racers to know exactly where to get their hand-off, keeps bottles at a standstill for perfect hand-off execution, and reduces human error. Bottle Grab holds bottles at a fixed height and lateral position and allow bottles to be properly grabbed from the bottom.
The frequency of dropped bottles that occur in professional cycling today is shocking. One might expect at the top level of the sport that this race practice would be dialed in, but it’s still a rampant issue.
Oier Lazkano missed a feed in Stage 8 of the 2024 Vuelta a España due to poor coordination with the Movistar Team Soigneur.
It Makes Feed Zones Safer for Riders
When bottles are dropped, they often tumble through the peloton like a land mine, causing crashes when they get under the wheels of unlucky riders. Improving hand off success rate decreases the frequency of loose bottles rolling through the peloton.
Owainn Doull of EF Education – Nippo crashed in the 2022 Tour de France after riding over a dropped water bottle.
Feed zones are chaotic. Riders are looking off to the side trying to pick out their soigneur while navigating the pack before diverting from their line to get to the side of the road. There are many soigneurs on the side of the road, moving from their position to get to their rider. Both parties are shouting, and human error also causes confusion and chaos. Bottle Grab minimizes human error, reduces the number of soigneurs on the side of the road, and allows for riders to more easily pick out where to get their feed.
A controversy in the 2022 Tour de France, Thibaut Pinot was struck in the face by the arm of a soigneur trying to reach to a rider deeper in the peloton
It Improves Safety for Soigneurs
In amateur and professional bike racing, it can be dangerous to be standing on the side of the course. Road racing offers the most dangerous road side conditions, with packs of hundreds of riders going by at speeds of often over 30 mph.
It is even more dangerous for soigneurs – those designated to hand off bottles and nutrition to riders. They have to get within arms reach of the riders, and a lot can go wrong. Collisions can occur between soigneurs and riders. Even worse, collisions can occur between soigneurs and the various motorcycles and team cars are going by as well. A soigneur was badly injured after being hit by a race official’s car in a women’s professional race in 2006.
A rider nearly collided with a soigneur in one of the spring classic races in 2024.
Just handing off a bottle can leave a soigneur or rider injured as well. Without proper technique or when riders are going at excessive speeds, soigneurs as well as riders can injure their hands, fingers, arms, and shoulders from bottle hand offs by tearing muscles or ligaments.
“The feed zone is a very dangerous place. Every time you do it, when you feel that bag go out of your hand and you don’t hear metal scraping on the tarmac, you breathe an inner sigh of relief.”
In fact, Beckett still suffers from a muscle tear in his shoulder that occurred when he handed a bottle to a rider going full speed at Paris-Roubaix. He also recalls a time when former Garmin-Cervélo rider Andreas Klier tore ligaments in his thumb and crashed when the pair mistimed their bidon pass.
Bottle Grab allows for riders to get their bottles and mussettes without the need for a soigneur to hand it off. Soigneurs are therefore able to stay out of harms way when riders, motos, and cars roll through the feed zone.