CamelBak  Podium Chill Insulated Water Bottle - 21 fl. oz.

I love the Camelbak podium chill 21 ounce bottles … and especially this one with the cool colors. It matches my yellow Santa Cruz Mountain Bike perfectly. Add a little ice and the Podium Chill keeps your liquid ‘chilled’. Perfect bottle!!!

How can you make a simple device so overly complicated and impossible to clean. The cap consists of at least 5 pieces that I could it break down into and even then every part, including a circular plastic washer, is dimpled with unnecessary holes that are perfect for mold growth and impossible to clean even with a toothpick and a bottle brush kit. Its a water bottle! After breaking it down there are still inaccessible areas (the valve area) which are the places which get the grossest and usually the first place you want to clean. The plastic structure that encompasses the central valve not only has unnecessary cutouts which are impossible to clean but extra ridges built only to capture grime. The cap itself is designed with extra nooks and crannies at the inner extremities for housing grime and again impossible to clean.

These bottles are ideal for road cycling. They fit snuggly in cages, don't leak, squeeze liquid out easily, and can be disassembled for thorough cleaning, too. The caps can be turned to a "closed" position to prevent leakage when traveling off the bike should the bottles be turned horizontally or upside down in your car or luggage. Really recommend these. Also, for the warm weather, they can be stored in the fridge or freezer to pre-chill. Add some ice to your liquid before the ride and the drink will remain chilled for a while on a blistering hot day. But, don't expect a miracle. It's not like a Yeti after all.

So, I have the Podium Dirt Series and need two new bottles. The Dirt Series did not hold ice long on a bike ride so I opted for the insulated Podium Chill. The first thing I noticed is the bottle does not look as good as the online pictures. The outer case is clear plastic with the "insulating case" in black. Looks cheap to me. After reading some reviews, I conducted my own insulation test. On the kitchen counter of an air conditioned house, I put eight similar-sized ice cubes in both the Dirt Series and Chill bottles. Then I added two cups of same temperature tap water to each bottle. I checked each bottle in 15-minute intervals. After one hour, all the ice was melted in both. So in conclusion - its just a plastic water bottle. Fortunately, I bought them on sale.

This is my first CamelBak product. Can I put it in the dishwasher? It's got a big tag with no real useful information. It says to go to the website for care instructions. This is irritating. I don't want to have to do more work to find out information that every other plastic food container I have ever bought has imprinted on it. Anyway, I go to the site and what do I find? Nothing about what I was told to come here for. I find the product (this one, of course) and does it tell me if I can put in the dishwasher? Nope. I wasted 15 minutes rereading the description over and over. Don't think I did.

I’ve been using Podium water bottles for many years and liked them until this recent generation. They switched from a simple design to one that is overly complicated and fragile. Two of these have broken in only a few months of use. The plastic tabs that are part of the spigot broke off. These are also stiffer and harder to get water out of. Meanwhile, I keep using my decade old Podium bottles. These new ones are now trash.

just completed a ride in 80 degree heat. my ice cubes were melted within one hour - water cooler than non insulated, but i do not recommend this as insulated.

I have been using this bottle on and off for about 12 months. I bought this bottle on the reputation of CamelBak, but it is the biggest disappointment I've had from the company. The insulation on this bottle works well and it's a great size, but that's about all I can say "nice" about the product. With a small amount of ice added before a ride, it will keep my drink cool for 2-3 hours. The bottle is impossible to operate as intended while riding a bike. Switching from the "off" to the "on" position requires two hands, so I find that I leave it in the "on" position. This defeats the purpose of having an "off" and makes me wonder why the bottle is so complicated to begin with! The valve is so deeply inset into the cap that the bottle collects a quarter-inch of mud or dirt. This is between you and your water when you want to take a drink, and is IMPOSSIBLE to clean when you get home (I've tried a few specialty brushes). I seldom use this bottle any longer, and when I do it is while riding my trainer at home. It is simply not a product I can recommend for use outdoors.

The bottle definitely keeps water colder longer than a standard bottle with no insulation. Will it keep ice for hours? No, it won't, but it isn't designed to function like this. It's not a vacuum insulated bottle. They advertise twice as long as a standard bottle and I'd say that's about right. What I like about it the most is that it seals. On long rides, I mix powder with my water. I have never had a standard water bottle that didn't seep at least a little. The seepage causes the bottle to get all stick and sometimes if roads are really bumpy it dribbles down the side of my bike. Not the end of the world, but annoying nonetheless. The Camelbak bottles seal nice - both the cap and the nozzle.

Nice looking bottle, insulation works well enough. I like the contact-free nozzle and the fact that it seems to flow more water more easily than competing products.