Secure loop, well sealed, easy one handed compression

The 700 ml SmartWater replacement

I’ve been hooked on 700 ml SmartWater bottles for years but I was tired of the plastic getting crinkly and on principle tired of paying $4 every time I needed a new bottle of water. But I wanted to keep the sportcap with a flip lid, and this Thru bottle sccomdates the sportcap perfectly. The volume is actually around 800 ml when topped off, which means between my 3 full bottles I’ve got right at 2.5L capacity. The size of this bottle fits perfectly into Gossamer Gear’s Bottle Rocket. It’s great to never need to buy a SmartWater bottle again.

An Imrpovement on a Classic

I haven’t used the original version of the ThruBottle, so my comparisons are to the OG Smartwater (SW) bottle. The new ThruBottle feels like a sturdier plastic than SW bottles. The ThruBottle has a keeper for the lid, which I had to widget separately for the SW. The ThruBottle has a keeper cord to help hold it in a bottle pocket, and it has embossed volume markings so you don’t have to mark it yourself with Sharpie that will wear off. The ThruBottle uses the common thread diameter for its cap. So an improvelent in every way on the OG. But is it improvement enough? A ThruBottle does cost ~3X a new Smartwater bottle. You can hotrod a Smartwater bottle to have most of the features - lid keeper, volume markings, retention cord - of the ThruBottle. Smartwater bottles are surprisingly sturdy anyway, and you can reinforce with duct tape, so is a ThruBottle that much more sturdy? What I’d really like from a bottle that I did’t buy at a gas station is an opening large enough to pour in hot water, to clean inside easily, and none of these 28mm cap bottles can do that. Back to 1L polyethylene Nalgene bottles for winter… It’s possible I’ll find the ThruBottle significantly more usable than Smartwater bottles, but for now I’ll say I wouldn’t buy another one. The OG works well enough for now.