Alameda Runners – Get After It!

I did a review on Purist water bottles, by Specialized, a couple of years ago.  The review can be found here.  Since that review, I have used nothing but Purist and Camelback water bottles.  If I had more Purist bottles, I would use them exclusively.  Just like the last review, I was not very enthused about reviewing insulated bottles.  Every insulated bottle that I have owned was very hard to squeeze which caused a lot of frustration.  I took a Camelback insulated bottle to a triathlon to jettison at a water stop.  The bottle was so hard to squeeze, I did not get much water on that section of the race.  I was glad to be rid of the thing but the drama that I created during a race had me avoid insulated water bottles for a while.

The Purist insulated bottle is easy to squeeze!  It is so easy to squeeze that I had to examine the bottle after I tried it for the first time.  I could tell that it was insulated but I could not really feel the insulation barrier.  The volume of insulation makes the bottle one ounce smaller than the standard 24 ounce bottle but that is okay.  I filled the water bottle up with ice water at work one day and still had cold water when I got home 90 minutes later.  Every time I rode home from work with a standard bottle, my water was warm when I got home.  We had a very warm winter here with temperatures typically reaching the upper 50’s or low 60’s (14c-18c) in the afternoons.

In addition to the insulation the bottle has the standard Purist interior and cap.  I can’t say enough good things about the “Purist silicon infusion”.  I thought tea bags infused water with tea flavor.  I can’t imagine how Purist infuses silicon dioxide into or onto plastic.  It does not matter if I know how they do it, as long as it works.  My bottles are always clean.  The only time there is a left over flavor is when I don’t clean the cap properly.  The cap is advertised to pop off with a tug and a twist but that does not work for me.

What I like about the bottle:

• It is easy to squeeze
• The smooth interior that is easy to clean and does not hold odor
• The cool cap that does not let water leak out.  You squeeze the cap to open a diaphragm to let the water out.  It works great.
• The insulation works very well.  I have not tried it on a 100 degree day yet but time will tell.
• The bottles are BPA free

What I don’t like:

• The cap is hard to take apart for cleaning
• The price is too high to build up a good collection

I really like this water bottle.  The standard plastic bottles always have me wondering about the plastic leaching into the water that I drink.  I don’t get that impression from the Purist bottle.