Tested, improved further

I've taken a number of longer rides and it is working out pretty well, although drawing the bottle is taking more conscious effort than I would like with the Zefal Wiiz bottle cage, so I've changed a few things:

1. re-deployed my bottle cage lowering bracket (basically an aluminum plate with three holes drilled 64mm apart, 3 standard M5-.80 bottle cage bolts and one M5-.80 locking nut) from another bike that I no longer need a seat tube bottle cage for
2. replaced the Origin8 Articul-8er adjustable/side entry cage on the seat tube with a Planet Bike stainless steel cage mounted in the normal orientation
3. replaced the Zefal Wiiz side entry cage with an oldie (and long discontinued) but a goodie, the Catamount Catcage that can be mounted front, left and right oriented

Lowering the seat tube cage gives me a little more room to move the frame bag backwards, giving freer access to the down tube bottle, plus lets me use a normal, front-facing bottle cage on the seat tube.

Using a regular bottle cage is more secure, which I found out is important because with my first use of ice in my water bottles, the obviously air tight Elite Maxi Cincio bottle deforms as the ice melts and the water volume inside shrinks.  That allowed the bottle to slip out of the cage a little and actually rub my chain while riding.  I found that out when I noticed some damage on the bottom of the bottle--not enough to cause a leak, luckily.  Maybe that also explains why I was feeling kind of weak on my ride yesterday--chain rubbing on the water bottle! :-)

Using the low profile Catamount Catcage puts the bottle just that little bit closer to the down tube and away from the frame bag, plus it naturally makes the top of the bottle angle slightly to the side, which makes drawing the bottle easier.

I haven't test ridden it in this configuration yet, but I have high hopes that this is it, the final setup.  Fingers crossed!

One final note and mini-rant:  bike companies, frame designers, etc. need to stop putting bottle mounts so high up on medium to smaller frames.  I understand that some people might not want the seat tube cage mounts as low as possible.  Not everybody wants to use really large bottles and some people like to use seat tube bottles as their primary bottle (how crazy is that!?), needing easy reach and clearance for the front derailleur clamping band is important, but the right answer is something I'm seeing on some new frames recently--have three bottle cage bosses on the seat tube so the end user can choose where to put their cage.  A couple of Presta valve nuts also work perfectly as spacers to provide clearance for the derailleur clamp if needed.