An insulated water bottle will keep your drink at the right temperature for longer. If it’s blisteringly hot, a cool drink will help lower your core temperature and lower the risk of heat stress.
Keeping a drink warm in cold weather is just as important, as there’s a tendency to drink less when it’s cold, particularly if your drink has cooled to the point where it’s uncomfortably chilly, but you may be sweating almost as much under your cold weather layers.
For both, an insulated water bottle can be a godsend, helping to keep your energy drink at a better temperature for longer than an uninsulated water bottle.
We’ve rounded up our pick of the best insulated water bottles for cyclists here, while lower down you can read our tips for what to look for when choosing an insulated cycling bottle.
Our pick of the best insulated cycling water bottles
Bivo: RRP from £40
Botl: RRP from £26
Camelbak Podium Ice: RRP £28
Camelbak Podium Steel: RRP from £35
Camelbak Podium Titanium: RRP £100
Elite Deboyo Race: RRP £25
Elite Ice Fly: RRP from £12
Giant Evercool Thermo: RRP from £12
Specialized Purist Insulated Chromatek MoFlo: RRP £21
Trek Voda Ice: RRP from £21
Why trust Cyclist‘s advice?
Patrik Lundin / Cyclist
At Cyclist we’re out riding whatever the weather. Our Big Rides have stretched from the Negev Desert to the Passo Giau in the snow (above). In both cases, we appreciate a drink at a comfortable temperature, so an insulated water bottle is a handy accessory.
We know what to look for in an insulated cycling water bottle and which to recommend. We’re not paid for product placement, so you can trust us to provide unbiased advice.
Best insulated water bottles for cyclists
Bivo
From £39.99 | View offer
Capacity: 500ml, 621ml
Claimed weight: 240g, 270g
Squeezable?: Rigid
Insulation: Vacuum
Bivo sells two sizes of vacuum-insulated steel bottles to fit bike bottle cages. The 500ml bottle weighs 240g empty and the 621ml version 270g. Both are available in a range of colours with an anti-slip coating as well as raw steel. Bivo’s patented fast flow nozzle ensures you can drink from the bottle quickly when needed, while you can buy a dust cap to keep the top clean.
Botl
From £26 | View offer
Capacity: 500ml, 800ml
Claimed weight: 328g, 380g
Squeezable?: Rigid
Insulation: Vacuum
Another brand with a range of colours and sizes. The Botl bottles come with a folding sports cap, but you can buy a traditional screw cap as an extra too. The 70mm diameter for the 500ml size is a little narrower than a standard 74mm water bottle though, so Botl’s 500ml insulated bottles won’t fit in a cycling bottle cage. The 800ml bottle is 73mm, so it may just fit, although you might need to pad your bottle cage with a few strips of handlebar tape for rattle-free riding.
Camelbak Podium Ice Insulated Bottle 620ml
RRP £28 | View offer
Capacity: 710ml
Claimed weight: 152g
Squeezable?: Yes
Insulation: Aerogel
The first of three Camelbak insulated bottle options here, the Podium Ice is a plastic bottle, so it’s squeezable. Camelbak claims its Aerogel insulation will keep contents at an even temperature for up to four times as long as a non-insulated bottle.
You get Camlebak’s locking cap, which helps prevent spills. While you used not to be able to disassemble this, risking things growing in the cap, Camelbak redesigned it a few years ago, so you can clean it out thoroughly.
Camelbak Podium Steel
From £35 | View offer
Capacity: 532ml, 700ml
Claimed weight: 300g, 354g
Squeezable?: Rigid
Insulation: Vacuum
Moving up Camelbak’s insulated range, the rigid steel bottle is vacuum insulated and is claimed to keep contents warm or cold for up to 18 hours. As with Camelbak’s other bottles, there’s a lockable valve to the cap, but as it’s a rigid bottle this includes a vent tube to ensure high liquid flow rates. Two sizes and multiple colours ensure that there are plenty of options.
Camelbak Podium Titanium
RRP £100 | View offer
Capacity: 532ml
Claimed weight: 236g
Squeezable?: Rigid
Insulation: Vacuum
Finally, for the insulated bottle weight weenie, Camelbak makes a vacuum insulated bottle in titanium. It’s only available in 532ml size and shaves 64g off the weight of the same size steel version. Camelbak claims contents will stay hot/cold for up to seven hours. There’s the same high-flow cap as with the steel bottle, but unlike the steel bottle there’s only one colour: titanium.
Elite Deboyo Race
Katherine Moore
RRP £25 | View offer
Capacity: 550ml
Claimed weight: 262g
Squeezable?: Rigid
Insulation: Vacuum
The stainless steel Elite Deboyo Race bottle uses the same high-flow cap design as the Fly plastic bottle, a favourite of pro teams. Elite adds a plastic overcap, so the nozzle is kept clean and there’s a vent tube added for high flow from the rigid bottle.
Elite says that hot drinks will stay warm for up to 12 hours and cold drinks cold for up to 24 hours thanks to the vacuum insulation. There’s a version with a screw-on steel cap available too. There’s only the one 550ml capacity sold though.
Elite Ice Fly
£12.99 | View offer
Capacity: 500ml, 650ml
Claimed weight: 131g, 140g
Squeezable?: Yes
Insulation: Foam
Elite’s Ice Fly non-rigid insulated bottle is claimed to keep drinks cool for up to 2.5 hours. A non-slip coating helps you to grip the bottle and it has the same cap as the non-insulated Fly bottle.
As with the Deboyo Race, there’s a secondary cap to keep things clean and, like all Elite’s bottles, it’s certified BPA free. Elite claims that the Ice Fly is made with 30% less plastic than an average bottle, so the weight is less. It’s rated for liquid temperatures up to 40C.
Giant Evercool Thermo
RRP £11.99 | View offer
Capacity: 600ml
Claimed weight: Not specified
Squeezable?: Yes
Insulation: Foam
Giant’s contribution to cool drinks is its Evercool Thermo bottle. It’s a plastic bottle with insulating material between its double walls and comes with a leakproof valve.
Giant rates the bottle from +90C to -20C, so there’s plenty of range to keep your drink at your preferred temperature, although the insulation isn’t likely to be as effective as a vacuum bottle. Liv riders can choose a Liv-branded bottle to match their bikes.
Specialized Purist Insulated Chromatek MoFlo
£21 | View offer
Capacity: 650ml
Claimed weight: 140g
Squeezable?: Yes
Insulation: Foam
Specialized’s insulated bottle relies on its Chromatek insulating layer to keep contents warm/cold. It claims high squeezability too and an amorphous silicon dioxide coating on the inside surface is said to avoid staining and aftertaste or plastic taste. The leakproof MoFlo cap is designed for high flow rates and easy cleaning.
Trek Voda Ice
From £19.99 | View offer
Capacity: 591ml, 828ml
Claimed weight: 122g, 141g
Squeezable?: Yes
Insulation: Foam
That’s Voda, not Vodka. Trek’s double walled bottle has foam insulation, which it claims keeps drinks cold for double the time of an uninsulated bottle. There’s a non-leak high flow cap and a mid-bottle ring for grip and Trek says the bottle is dishwasher safe. There’s a range of four colours as well as two sizes.
How do I choose the right one for me?
Elite
Insulation
An insulated water bottle will be double walled, with either synthetic insulation or a vacuum to help keep the contents at the right temperature.
A non-vacuum bottle will typically be made of plastic and soft sided. Its insulation isn’t as effective as a vacuum and so it won’t keep the temperature of your drink constant for as long. In contrast, a vacuum-insulated bottle will be metal and rigid sided. You can expect it to keep its contents at a more constant temperature for longer, although even here it will have a non-insulated lid, so the drink’s temperature will drift over time.
For both types of bottle, the rate of cooling or warming will increase once you start to drink from them. There’s limited mixing in a full bottle, but once there’s air in the top, the drink will slosh around as you ride, mix faster and cool more quickly.
Capacity
Insulated cycling water bottles typically have a capacity from around 500ml or a little more, although the insulation results in a bottle that’s around the size of a 750ml bottle. Choose a larger capacity and it will be even larger. If you ride a smaller bike, make sure that there’s the room to fit a larger bottle and access it easily when riding.
Slurpability
You’ll typically squeeze a water bottle to drink while you ride. Although soft-sided insulated bottles can be squeezed, they’re slightly more rigid than a single-walled bottle and so it’s a bit harder to deliver the contents.
In contrast, a vacuum water bottle with rigid walls will usually include an air vent so that the liquid flows out of the nozzle even though you can’t squeeze it.
Liquid temperature
Soft insulated bottles may have an upper temperature limit, to prevent damage to the plastic or insulation. For the Elite Ice Fly, this is 40C. A metal water bottle should tolerate hotter fluids, although the plastic cap will still limit this. You should be able to sterilise the metal parts of a vacuum bottle with near-boiling water though.
If you want a cold drink for a hot ride, you should be able to place a soft insulated bottle in the fridge for a few hours before riding and cool its contents down. Heat transfer to cool down a vacuum-insulated bottle will be much slower, so it’s probably easiest to cool the drink before adding it to the bottle.
