Core77

This Bike Will Get You Drunk

...But how does it work?

By Kat Bauman - April 25, 2016

in Bikes

As reported in Bike Radar last week, Moss Bikes has unveiled an adventure bike with a tipply secret.

All business... Mad Men style.

The frame in question, the Spitfire CX, was shown at the recent Bespoke custom bike show in Bristol. It has raw and rugged good looks, made from unpainted fillet brazed 921 stainless and covered with slick European-made components. But the charming features that bring us together today are stashed out of sight.

The frame of this bike purportedly holds almost all of a 750ml bottle of scotch.

Here's where the scotch goes in. Photo Jamie Beach

To fill, you remove the top screws, get out your tiniest funnel, and pour away—the second screw acts as an air release. Then you ride like crazy with your crazy water filled frame, until you need a break, whereupon you can pour yourself a couple fingers into your sweaty fingers, or just relax with your head under your (likely filthy) bottom bracket and drip that sweet (likely hot) whiskey straight into your mouth.

And this is where the scotch comes out. Photo: Moss Bikes

In a world with a plethora of options for attaching 6 packs, wine bottles, growlers, 22s, and hip flasks onto and inside a bicycle, why is an uninteresting question. Bikers like to drink. That's it. But how is still intriguing. How does this thing work?

So there's the dispensing valve, but what else? Photo Jamie Beach

Seriously I need answers. Photo Spokes Bike Shop

A couple bike companies have tried this storage stunt with camping fuel, but I'm still intrigued.

I was unable to get the builder on the line for comment, so I turn my questions to you. How would you guess the liquor storage works? Is it sloshing straight in the frame? Can you imagine other applications?

How does this sloshy bike design work?!

o

Favorite This
Q
4

Comment

Comments

Sean Horita

8 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Moots did a long-range fat bike (I think for Iditabike) that could hold cooking fuel in the titanium fork legs.

This is cool but if it were mine I'd rather have an expanding bladder in one of the tubes that could be filled/removed as necessary. Like the Trek time trial bikes that Armstrong rode.

!Report as spam
TheAngryBike Wrench

8 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Mostly novelty, and nothing too complicated about it. It's a simple valve on the bottom. The builder brazed in a bung for the valve, then brazed a watertight piece of sheet stock below that, inside the tube. The upper hardware is standard and used commonly for mounting water bottles. There may or may not be a watertight seal at the top - the junction with the head tube would be watertight anyway. @Juan Cano - stopping to drink is the point for a lot of us. It's more about socializing than getting our heart rates up. If you put the liquor in the top tube, you're raising the center of mass a lot, which will affect the handling of the bike. In the down tube, it ensures as much of the liquid mass as possible is always as low as possible. The mud is a real concern, but if you're an off-road cyclist, you're used to a little mud on your water bottles, and cleaning the valve off before pouring wouldn't be a big deal.

!Report as spam
SAM J

8 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

probably more an oddity than anything. there are motorcycle designs that use the frame to store fuel/oil and such, now that make lots sense. not sure if i want to drive alcohol out of muddy tube, where there are also lubed moving parts nearby.

!Report as spam
Juan Cano

8 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Seems like a terrible idea. Maybe you can connect a hose to the bottom valve? It would be a less terrible idea if you could drink while you ride (which is a terrible idea). The thought of stopping and somehow getting under the bike to get the liquor out seems far fetched. Why not the top tube? Or come up with a system where somehow the pedaling creates pressure to help dispense the product?

!Report as spam