A while back, I saw Ira Ryan from Breadwinner Cycles at a Cross Crusades race in Portland prepping his bike for his race. He had ridden to the event from his home so he had two cages and two bottles and with less than a quarter rotation of an allen key had removed his bottle cages and was ready for his race.

I review a lot of bikes and tend to put frame bags and bottle cages on and off my bikes that I’ll use for touring, so I adopted his trick. Check out the details below.

The secret to this hack is to take a Dremel or a hacksaw and slice your bottle cages down from the eyelets. You don’t have to be a surgeon or a steady-handed craftsperson or even all that handy to master this method.

Once the cages are cut like this, it’ll just take a quarter rotation of your allen key to be able to remove them. It takes 5 seconds flat, versus backing out a long and awkward to access bolt.

Not using metal cages? You best buy some King Cages! Looking for black King Cages? Pick them up from Myth Cycles in Durango!