What is it?

This is a tool to help you properly clean bicycle water bottles (fits Bontrager and a couple other brands I've seen) by removing the nipple from the bottle lid. This allows you to properly clean everything, so you don't wind up with some mystery growth floating in your sports drink.

How to use it:

To use this thing, close the nipple on the bottle cap so it's down in the lid. Place the tool over the nipple on the inside of the lid, lining up the sides so they cover the sides of the supports on the lid. It'll only fit and press on fully if you install it correctly. Press the tool into the lid until it hits the top of the inside of the lid, and then pull the nipple as if opening the bottle, and it should pull straight out of the lid. Clean everything properly, and reinstalling is just a matter of pushing the nipple back into the lid - the tool isn't needed. I also find everything happens better if everything is wet.

For more information, see the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Kujo-eNFs

Background:

I use Bontrager water bottles and for a while, the only way I was really cleaning them was to rinse them out a couple times with hot water, and hope I got all the sport drink cleaned out. Was pretty sure I wasn't getting it properly clean, but was living on optimism. Recently I got to the end of a bottle and took the lid off to see some stuff floating around in the drink. Having used enough Camelbaks, I quickly recognized the remnants of whatever fun stuff grows in the drink tube if you don't clean it properly. So, I realized what I knew all along - my cleaning process for water bottles just wasn't good enough, and I needed to come up with something to clean the bottles properly. The real challenge is getting everything inside the nipple properly cleaned, but the only way to really do that is to get the nipple out. Problem is, the nipple has two wings which keep it from pulling out easily. I managed to remove one using needle nose pliers, but it was a slow process and didn't seem like a good idea. If only there was a way to hold the wings in (the nipple is soft, after all) and make it easy to remove - thus this thing.

But I use Specialized water bottles and this doesn't fit!

My wife's favorite bottles are Specialized. I'm working on the tool to get that to work, but it's not working quite as well, so I'm still trying to sort the design.