Review on Stay Hydrated on Your Bike with the CamelBak Podium Chill Insulated Water Bottle by Evan Burnside

Summary: Pros: - Easy to remove cap for cleaning Cons: - Nozzle sprays water everywhere rather than in a clean stream - Only squeezes a short distance along the bottom half of the bottle - Harder to squeeze - Less control of the Water volume at low compression vs. high compression - Open/close valve: Greater rotation angle to open/close the valve, harder to turn and sharp plastic edges if you don't line up your thumb perfectly - 13.6g less insulation than the previous Nun model a little background A: I had two old 25 ounce bottles but lost one. So I bought one of the new 24oz bottles. Driving home from work, today I opted for the scenic route (50km) and took an old bottle and a new one with me. My experience with the new 24 ounce bottle was terrible. While it sits a little "cleaner" and conforms better to the shape of the bottle cage than the old 25oz model, I never had a problem with the old model in my 100+ hours on the bike over the last year. With a new bottle, the geometry only allows you to effectively squeeze the bottom half of the bottle. This makes it difficult to get a big gulp of water at once, as less material is displaced during compression. The next problem concerns the spout: the new model splashes water everywhere. I've found that when I ride my bikes, my bottles get covered in road dust or dirt, including the spout. So I keep the bottle away from my face and just squirt water into my mouth. But this new bottle just squirts water everywhere like a hippopotamus in a toilet. With the old bottle, the engineers at least took the laminar flow into account. With this new bottle, the guys at CamelBak seem to have just handed this project over to an intern. As for the insulation, there's probably less in a new bottle. I suspect that in an attempt to design a lid that is easy to clean, the weight of the new lid (35.3g) has increased by 10g compared to the old model lid (26g). But they still tried to keep the overall bottle weight roughly the same between models, with the old model weighing in at 131g and the new at 126.8g. Something had to reduce the weight, so it was either plastic walls or insulation. In any case, there is less material. And finally the on-off valve: If you don't put your thumb right next to the spout, the plastic will bite your finger. This is a totally unergonomic design with sharp edges. It wouldn't be fun to open on a cold, rainy day on the bike. It's also a lot harder to roll than the old model, although my old bottle would have been pretty broken by now so not a fair comparison. So the new bottle is harder to squeeze, has less insulation, splashes water everywhere, doesn't open/close ergonomically, and holds less liquid per ounce than the old model. Returned after the first ride.