Polar Insulated Water Bottle

Combining the thermal properties of an insulated vacuum bottle with the lightweight, adaptable features of a plastic bottle, the Polar Bottle® is the ideal choice for active people. Simply fill with liquid and ice and hit the trail. For longer cooling power, fill your Polar Bottle® and store it in the freezer before use. Either way, it’ll keep liquids cold twice as long as regular water bottles.

221 of 225 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars The only real problem is fit. They nearly work too well., July 14, 2008
By John P. Thiel “John T.” (Astoria, Queens, New York City) See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME) This review is from: Polar Insulated Water Bottle (Misc.) Normally, thermal bottles are too hard to squeeze to get liquid out of them, and they do not insulate well at all. They are the 1st I have tried that really worked, and they are just as squeezable as regular water bottles.

PROS and TESTIMONIAL: 1st time using these I froze them both, put them on the bike, went riding out in the heat of summer, and could not get a drop out of them because they stayed frozen hard as bowling balls the more than two hours of that specific ride out on the open road. I had to open one and drink at least the one sip’s worth of liquid that had melted. This was an complete 1st. I have used other thermal water bottles over the years, but I tossed them all pretty quickly. None of them worked till these.

Second ride I refrigerated them and put ice cubes in before heading out. The ice melted but the contents stayed pretty cool for hours or riding, again in the heat of summer.

Third time I came up with a smart idea. I filled them halfway and stuck them in the freezer, then filled them the rest of the way with refrigerated liquid just before heading out. This worked the best of the alternatives I have tried so far.

One rider in my riding club had a great idea freeze one bottle and fill the other one with liquid and ice. He says by the time he’s prepared for that second bottle it is melted enough that he can drink out of it. I go through two bottles in under three hours in the summertime, so I am not sure this will work for me, but I plan to attempt it out on the next long ride.

In any way, they’re totally freezer safe. Go ahead, fill them and freeze them, then see how long it takes before you may be able to drink out of them.

FLAVOR: I have had totally no problem with the bottle influencing the flavor of the fluids I put in my bottles. Many complained about this, but it looks more probably that they did not completely wash the bottles before use. There maybe many shipping wax in there, or just many residue from the manufacturing procedure. Just two drops of dish soap; any more will have your fluids tasting soapy for some number of rides; wash out those bottles good before the 1st use, and you wont have a problem.

CON the 24 oz bottle may be too big for your bike frame: I calculated the 24 oz bottle height at 10.5 inches with the cap closed and 10.75 with it open, the caviat being that before you order two of these bottles, be sure they’ll really fit on your bike. One on the downtube certainly will, but you may have to go with the smaller ones if it wont fit under your top tube when put in in the upright cage mounted on your seat tube. Mine just barely clears the top tube when put in in the upright cage on my 54cm Trek road frame; if my frame were only 2cm smaller, I imagine it may not fit. I have included a couple of pictures of my 24 oz bottles in the cages of both my road and mountain bikes for reference.

I’ve seen some number of riders with a 24oz on the downtube and a smaller one on the upright, but the only problem there’s grabbing and reinserting the bottle in the upright cage while riding. Personally, I used up the one on the downtube , then switch them, but many recreational rider never have gotten into the habit of taking a drink from their water bottle while riding anyway.

In any way, if you have the slightest doubt about that second bottle fitting, purchase one, see if it fits, and if it does then order a second one.

BOTTOM LINE: If they were normal water bottles I could purchase them just for the size. Having 48oz of water on you without having to wear a Camelbak is nice.

The fact that the thermal technology works in this make and model is just miraculous, as I have tried some number of thermal bottles before and none of them seemed to do a damn thing to keep cold liquids cold and hot liquids hot in the winter.

And lastly, every other thermal bottle I have tried was hard to impossible to squeeze one handed while riding, so they were too inconvenient to be useful on a bike ride. Particularly on a road ride near a big city, it is tough to get those precious seconds for a fast drink, so it really needs to work and these do.

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141 of 146 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars read this if you’re worried with leaching chemicals!, February 29, 2008
By mtbiker See all my reviews This review is from: Polar Insulated Water Bottle (Misc.) These bottles are all my family uses. To the other reviewers who posted that this bottle leaches chemicals, I could ask that they do a little research before posting. 1st, you may want to wash the bottles in your dishwasher or hot water before using, this is just common sense and will remove any plastic odor (though I have never noticed any). These bottles are made from LDPE#4, which as indicated by many studies, doesn’t leach toxic chemicals into your water. On the other hand, Lexan, ie Polycarbonate ie Nalgene bottles have been shown to leach Bisphenol A or BPA into water. You may be able to feel safe purchasing and drinking from these bottles made of FDA accepted LDPE#4.

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92 of 94 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of five stars Tested much better at keeping cold than a regular bottle., July 7, 2008
By Maina (New England) See all my reviews This review is from: Polar Insulated Water Bottle (Misc.) Well, I saw the other reviews and decided to purchase five of these for a trip to Hawaii with the family. I received them today and they were not exactly what I had projected. The outside is a frosted clear plastic and the inside is a pure white hard plastic. Can not tell if they’re molded together or just pushed into one another. They do not rotate so possibly they’re glued or fused in many way. There’s a level of air between them also as what seems a foil wrap or sock that has the words and coloring on it. The wrap is loose fitting and looks rather cheap. But, I did not want to loose hope so I decided to create a test to see how well the double walled bottle worked, since, after all it was to get good reviews. I decided to pit it against a regular squeeze bottle that people usually put on a bicycle, and one of those hard plastic, large screw mouth bottles that people are generally carrying around work. I put ten ice cubes in each of the bottles and left them in a hot room (between 85 and 90 degrees). I did not want the color to be a factor so they weren’t put in the sun. I waited till the hard plastic bottle’s ice had melted by about 1/2 then I proceeded to measure the total of water in each of the bottles. The hard plastic bottle had eleven teaspoons, the standard squeeze bottle had eight teaspoons and the polar bottle had four teaspoons. So from this I think it is just to say that the polar bottle was much better at keeping things cold than the others. The other thing I did was put a napkin under each of them. The polar bottle was the only one that did not get wet underneath. The other bottles both sweated a pretty bit. I think the double wall could not stopped the sweating so the foil liner must be adding many benefit of many kind. The foil, by the way, does go around the bottom of the bottle also, not just the sides. In general, I think it’ll work out well and I’m going to bring them on our trip. I hope this helps others in their choice.

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