I decided to buy a Canyon Neuron for its water bottle mounts. While plenty of bikes with similar travel are UDH-compatible and have aluminum frames, the Neuron won me over with its two (!) sets of bottle mounts plus accessory mounts inside the front triangle.
As important as bottle mounts are to me, it’s not always possible to find a bike with enough of them. My hardtail, despite its huge open front triangle and extra-large frame, has only one set of mounts in order to maximize dropper post insertion. The same goes for my Yeti SB140, which doesn’t even have accessory mounts, though Yeti finally got wise and added them to the new LT and MT models.
Fortunately, there’s a fix for bikes with lackluster frame mount options: the Tailfin HydroMount. The $35 kit includes all the hardware you need to add bottle or accessory mounts to your mountain bike frame. I’ve been testing a couple of kits on my bikes for mounting bottles and tools, and here’s what I’ve found.
It’s easy to attach the HydroMount, though you’ll want to make sure the straps are very tight
The Tailfin HydroMount uses Voile-style straps to secure the pill-shaped receiver to your bike. I started by attaching a HydroMount to the seat tube on my Orange P7 hardtail. The receiver has a rubbery textured material on the backside to reduce slippage, with a slightly concave shape to hug round tubes. That makes it a good fit on steel-frame bikes like the P7.
Midway through a particularly bumpy ride, I noticed the HydroMount, along with my full water bottle, had shifted sideways. It turns out I hadn’t tightened the straps enough, and I probably should have used not just two straps but three for extra security.
I also used the HydroMount to add a second bottle mount to my Yeti SB140. There really isn’t room inside the front triangle for a second bottle, which left the underside of the downtube as my only viable option. This really isn’t a great spot for a water bottle, what with the mud spray and potential for impact, but for hot summer rides, I’ve found it’s a whole lot better than nothing. The HydroMount sits surprisingly flush against the mostly rectangular underside of the Yeti’s downtube, and here again, the key to ensuring the mount stays secure is to tighten the TPU straps as much as possible.
Today’s modern mountain bikes add “accessory mounts” beneath top tubes, designed to carry a flat repair kit or a small tool like the Daysaver Essential8, shown above. It turns out the spacing for accessory mounts is exactly the same as bottle mounts, so the HydroMount receiver can be used for these as well. Since accessories weigh a lot less than a full water bottle, you can get away with just two straps for mounting.
Tailfin doesn’t recommend attaching the HydroMount to your fork, chainstays, or seatstays. Really, it’s not a good idea to attach it to any tube that tapers down like a rigid fork, or anywhere that could impede your ability to pedal. That being said, I’d be willing to put a pair of HydroMounts on my suspension fork for bikepacking trips.
The Full kit is surprisingly comprehensive
Tailfin offers two HydroMount kits: Basic ($30) and Full ($35). I tested the Full, and unless you have a steel bike and are only planning to attach a lightweight tool, spend the extra $5 for the Full kit. It includes three straps in two different sizes, which should fit pretty much anywhere on any bike.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Tailfin includes four sets of bolts, ranging from 6.5mm to 9.5mm long, with both kits. This ensures the bolt doesn’t bottom out in the receiver, depending on how thick the bottle cage or accessory you’re mounting is. My only gripe is that the bolts use Torx heads, which can be hard to get a solid lock on when I’m trying to access them from weird angles, which is pretty much every time I attach a bottle cage inside my front triangle. Of course, you can just attach the cage to the mount before you attach the mount to the bike, but sometimes you’re just swapping cages, and it’s not worth undoing and redoing the straps.
I like the HydroMount better than another solution I tried
Prior to testing the HydroMount, I used Topeak Versa Mounts to attach bottle cages to my hardtail, both on the seat tube and the fork. They work well and barely budge, but they use brittle plastic that breaks down over time and eventually fails, which caused me to lose a bottle on a rough descent during the Huracan 300. The Versa Mounts do cost less (about $15) but don’t look quite as sleek as the HydroMount IMO.
Bottom line
The Tailfin HydroMount is a great upgrade for any bike that’s almost perfect, but lacks the right frame mounts.
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