What’s the surest way to know that a gear reviewer really loves a product? See them buy the gear full-priced with their own hard earned money. Two weeks prior to the Marathon des Sables this spring I walked into a local running store and bought two 26-ounce Ultimate Direction bottles with kicker valves ($10). If I needed another bottle today, I’d go ahead and do the same thing. As I recently shared on iRunFar’s Facebook page, this classic from Ultimate Direction is still the best water bottle I’ve ever used while running.
I could talk about the bottle’s comfortable shape or the fact that the top doesn’t leak (surprisingly, not always true of water bottles), but no feature compares to the UD bottles’ kicker valve. It’s easy to open and even even easier to shut, taking only a wave of the opposite hand or a quick brush against the torso to seal the bottle tight.
The Ultimate Direction Kicker Valve in its various states of opennessThe valve is also very easy on the mouth – a big plus when you’re using it for 10, 20, 30, or more hours at a time. I’ve had other bottles tear up the inside of my mouth after extended use.
Questions
- What’s your favorite bottle to use while running?
- If you’ve used an Ultimate Direction bottle with kicker valves, what did you think?
[Disclosure: The link to Amazon in this post is part of an affiliate program that helps support iRunFar.com. No free samples were received from Ultimate Direction in connection with this review.]
