My Santa Cruz County Cycling club mate and riding buddy Tom Pennello told me this cool tip last week and he gave me permission to share it with you. In his own words,
I almost always ride with something in my primary bottle (a plastic CamelBak Podium bottle). Typically it’s a Nuun tablet, or on a longer ride, Gatorade. Any second bottle is water and I transfer it to the first when needed, adding a tablet or powder packet.
Both Nuun and Gatorade encourage the appearance of little black spots of growth (mold?) in the bottom of the bottle. They hold fast and I’ve had to use a butter knife to scrape them off periodically.
Vitamin C is used as a preservative in various products, so I decided to try it. I fill the bottle half-way, add a little less than a 1/4 teaspoon of Vitamin C powder, shake, squirt a little through the top, and let the bottle sit with the infused water in it.
Behold, no more spots. The bottom of the bottle remains clean.I do this for the bottle any day I’m not riding, or after 2 consecutive days of riding.
The power I use is just Vitamin C — e.g., no sugar added to make it a Vitamin C drink.
Thanks very much Tom! Readers, we’re always looking for great cycling tips like Tom’s. Send them in when you have them and we’ll run the best ones.
Jim Langley is RBR’s Technical Editor. A pro mechanic & cycling writer for more than 40 years, he’s the author of Your Home Bicycle Workshop in the RBR eBookstore. Tune in to Jim’s popular YouTube channel for wheel building & bike repair how-to’s. Jim’s also known for his cycling streak that ended in February 2022 with a total of 10,269 consecutive daily rides (28 years, 1 month and 11 days of never missing a ride). Click to read Jim’s full bio.
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21 Comments
I wonder if citric acid would work too.
I use diluted bleach. I shake the bottle and let it sit for an hour. I then rinse with warm water followed by cold water. It works.
I also use a few drops of bleach in a clean bottle with twice as may drops of water. I swill around so the dilute touches every surface. Let it sit for 1\2 an hour then squirt it out through the drinking spout. After another half an hour rinse the bottle and lid thouroghly, et voila as new!
Ditto
Bleach and hot soapy water. Rinse well.
Also take apart the cap if you can as mold etc hides in those little crevices.
Mold cannot survive in an acidic (low pH) environment and many common acidic products can kill it, such as vinegar, lemon juice, and citric acid. Citric acid powder is inexpensive and readily available; it’s used in making wine and candy, among other things. It’s also great for removing rust..
Diluted bleach solution (4:1 or 5:1 water to bleach) will easily get rid of mold in your water bottles. Use hot water, can add some soap or not, be sure to let your cap soak with the valve OPEN in that mixture along with the bottle of course for maybe 15 minutes or so. Fill bottle with the solution after the soak, recap, and forcefully squirt solution through the valve. Once mold is gone, thoroughly rinse everything out, squirt hot water through the valve to clear the solution, then rewash if you are really unsure if you got everything out or just let air dry with the valve open.
I have switched to double walled stainless steel. Still have issue with gunk on the plastic top but none in the bottle. And keeps the drink cold!
+1 for stainless steel bottles like Bivo. Better tasting water, Gatorade…whatever. Really…how many more plastic bottles do we need in this world?
Love the steel bottles. Just switched this year!
Rinse out with mouthwash after the bleach.
Specialized Purist bottles have a silica lining which is what glass is. resists mold much longer than normal plastic bottles. And tastes like drinking from a glass, you’ll never switch back.
On the prevention side, after my ride I rinse the bottles with water then store them in the freezer. Problem solved before it starts!
and if you like the idea someone else suggested about putting them in the freezer, go ahead and put in a couple inches of water too, then you’ll have a big ice cube in there to keep the drink cold on your next ride. and you won’t hear rattling of regular ice cubes..
Freezing water in the plastic bottle will erode the plastic = more microplastics in you.
Mold is easy to deal with. I use the same products mention in this article from time to time, including other products that do the same thing, but none of those products form mold just in a few hours of riding, they only do so if they remain in the bottle after your ride and don’t rinse it out till the next day! So rinse out your bottles immediately.
The other thing that works 100% against mold, is to fill the bottle with about a 1/4th of the bottle with bleach, then fill the entire bottle with water, put your cap on and shake it gently in the kitchen sink so you don’t accidently get some drops on your clothing, then let the bottle sit for 24 hours, afterwards rinse the bottle out with a little drop of Dawn for dishes and hot water, then rinse again with clear hot water till all the soap is gone, and you’re bottle will no longer have mold. The Dawn thing is optional, if you don’t like the faint smell of bleach in the bottle then do the soap thing, but any trace amounts of bleach left over in the bottle after just doing a soapless rinse isn’t going to kill you, and you probably won’t even taste it even with clear water, but especially with some sort of mix in the water.
Bleach will not damage the bottle, I’ve been doing this for many years. What will damage the bottle is throwing the bottle into the dishwasher.
I use Bivo stainless steel bottles and just put the in the dishwasher after a ride.
Denture cleaning tablets. Let it soak overnight and all is well. Plus, your breath is fresher than spring.
Diluted bleach or better yet, Hydrogen Peroxide.
Contact lens cleaning.tablets work and are not toxic.
Thanks for the excellent comments everyone!
Jim
Get a good bottle brush and immediately scrub with soapy water after a ride. Do take apart and clean the bottle top. I do that once a week.
I wonder if citric acid would work too.
I use diluted bleach. I shake the bottle and let it sit for an hour. I then rinse with warm water followed by cold water. It works.
I also use a few drops of bleach in a clean bottle with twice as may drops of water. I swill around so the dilute touches every surface. Let it sit for 1\2 an hour then squirt it out through the drinking spout. After another half an hour rinse the bottle and lid thouroghly, et voila as new!
Ditto
Bleach and hot soapy water. Rinse well.
Also take apart the cap if you can as mold etc hides in those little crevices.
Mold cannot survive in an acidic (low pH) environment and many common acidic products can kill it, such as vinegar, lemon juice, and citric acid. Citric acid powder is inexpensive and readily available; it’s used in making wine and candy, among other things. It’s also great for removing rust..
Diluted bleach solution (4:1 or 5:1 water to bleach) will easily get rid of mold in your water bottles. Use hot water, can add some soap or not, be sure to let your cap soak with the valve OPEN in that mixture along with the bottle of course for maybe 15 minutes or so. Fill bottle with the solution after the soak, recap, and forcefully squirt solution through the valve. Once mold is gone, thoroughly rinse everything out, squirt hot water through the valve to clear the solution, then rewash if you are really unsure if you got everything out or just let air dry with the valve open.
I have switched to double walled stainless steel. Still have issue with gunk on the plastic top but none in the bottle. And keeps the drink cold!
+1 for stainless steel bottles like Bivo. Better tasting water, Gatorade…whatever. Really…how many more plastic bottles do we need in this world?
Love the steel bottles. Just switched this year!
Rinse out with mouthwash after the bleach.
Specialized Purist bottles have a silica lining which is what glass is. resists mold much longer than normal plastic bottles. And tastes like drinking from a glass, you’ll never switch back.
On the prevention side, after my ride I rinse the bottles with water then store them in the freezer. Problem solved before it starts!
and if you like the idea someone else suggested about putting them in the freezer, go ahead and put in a couple inches of water too, then you’ll have a big ice cube in there to keep the drink cold on your next ride. and you won’t hear rattling of regular ice cubes..
Freezing water in the plastic bottle will erode the plastic = more microplastics in you.
Mold is easy to deal with. I use the same products mention in this article from time to time, including other products that do the same thing, but none of those products form mold just in a few hours of riding, they only do so if they remain in the bottle after your ride and don’t rinse it out till the next day! So rinse out your bottles immediately.
The other thing that works 100% against mold, is to fill the bottle with about a 1/4th of the bottle with bleach, then fill the entire bottle with water, put your cap on and shake it gently in the kitchen sink so you don’t accidently get some drops on your clothing, then let the bottle sit for 24 hours, afterwards rinse the bottle out with a little drop of Dawn for dishes and hot water, then rinse again with clear hot water till all the soap is gone, and you’re bottle will no longer have mold. The Dawn thing is optional, if you don’t like the faint smell of bleach in the bottle then do the soap thing, but any trace amounts of bleach left over in the bottle after just doing a soapless rinse isn’t going to kill you, and you probably won’t even taste it even with clear water, but especially with some sort of mix in the water.
Bleach will not damage the bottle, I’ve been doing this for many years. What will damage the bottle is throwing the bottle into the dishwasher.
I use Bivo stainless steel bottles and just put the in the dishwasher after a ride.
Denture cleaning tablets. Let it soak overnight and all is well. Plus, your breath is fresher than spring.
Diluted bleach or better yet, Hydrogen Peroxide.
Contact lens cleaning.tablets work and are not toxic.
Thanks for the excellent comments everyone!
Jim
Get a good bottle brush and immediately scrub with soapy water after a ride. Do take apart and clean the bottle top. I do that once a week.