Ryder Innovation Kinetic Cage & Strap

The Ryder Innovation Kinetic Cage & Strap is a side-entry bottle cage that grabs a bottle well and gives you the ability to carry small accessories in its built-in storage. Best of all, its long slots for fixing bolts let you position it much higher or lower on the bike than a standard cage.

The Kinetic Cage's main point of difference from almost every other cage out there is those long slots. They give 10cm of adjustment over a standard cage so if you like your cage higher to make it easier to reach or lower to make room for something else in the bike's main triangle, Ryder's got you covered.

I wanted to carry a pair of 710ml Camelbak Podium Chill bottles during the recent heatwave. I'd already fitted Topeak Alt-Position Cage Mounts (as reviewed by Mike a few years back) to lower my cages and make room for a frame pump under the top tube of my Scapin, but a Chill bottle in the seat tube cage still interfered with the pump. The Kinetic Cage allowed me to move it down even further, preventing the clash.

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I also used the Kinetic Cage on the down tube, where its side-entry feature is more usable if you're right-handed. It's not very side-entry though, more like diagonal entry. That's still handy, but you can't shove a bottle in from the side the way you can with some side-entry cages.

> Read more road.cc reviews of bottle cages here

If you don't need extra space above the cage, you can use the slots to bring it as high as you like to make it easier to reach down for your bottle, or you can push it right down to clear, say, a frame bag under the top tube.

I used the Velcro strap to carry a spare tube, a pair of tyre levers and a hex-key multi-tool. The Velcro strap is held in a removable storage insert that also houses sleeves for a CO2 canister and Ryder's SlugPlug tubeless tyre repair widget. Take care to push the lever that latches the storage insert into place down hard until it clicks or it can simply fall off. You can guess how I found that out.

While I'm handing out caveats, make sure you use washers under your bottle cage bolts to spread the load over the plastic body of the Kinetic Cage. You can get 15mm-diameter M5 washers from fastener suppliers; the cage should really come with a couple of them.

Rivals

The £12.99 Topeak Ninja Master+ Cage X1AJ (tested by Stu earlier this year) has many of the same functions but comes with tyre levers, while the Kinetic Cage gives you a strap and storage sleeves. Other side-entry cages like the Giant Airway, and Bontrager Side Load are more expensive without any of the Kinetic Cage's extras, so overall the Kinetic Cage is a good deal.

Who should buy the Ryder Innovation Kinetic Cage & Strap?

If you need greater flexibility in positioning your bottles, the Kinetic Cage is for you, and you can get it without the strap for just £7.99. If, like me, you hate carrying things in your pockets and want tubes and tools to live permanently on your bike for when you need them, then the complete package is a very good thing.

Verdict

Extra positioning options for well-filled frames, plus handy storage strap