Our 2018 gift guide offers some gift ideas for the cyclist in your life. Today we take a look at the Silca Sicuro titanium bottle cage.

Bottle cages are often overlooked riding accessories, but they become important when you lose the bottle or the cage breaks. The titanium products provided by Silca may be the perfect gift to help cyclists avoid some unnecessary headaches.

Silca was originally an Italian brand, known for its bicycle air pumps. Five years ago, the original family owner sold Silca to Josh Poertner, a veteran of the American bicycle industry, who moved headquarters, assembly, and most of its manufacturing to Indianapolis.

For the past five years, Silca has been focusing on improving and perfecting every component category that they have entered from floor pumps. Read our review of Silca Pista to learn about one of the pumps.

Does everyone need accessories of this caliber? No, but there must be a desire for trade tools designed and created by artisans.

The Silca Sicuro titanium bottle cage is one of these products and can be a great gift for your favorite cyclist, who appreciates the exquisite craftsmanship of the bicycle.

Sicuro is one of Silca's carefully crafted products. Silca Sicuro titanium bottle cage and titanium mounting screws

Silca is not the first company to produce titanium bottle cages, but it seeks to improve other designs through Sicuro.

Silca uses a laser welding process, which can produce very fine welds and does not produce heat-affected zones. Silca can use lighter materials because there is less risk of brittle failure caused by the longer welding time or wider welding zone using this process.

The structure of Sicuro is made of 3Al/2.5V titanium, which is bent, welded and finally polished by hand. Taking into account the changes to the bicycle bottle holder, the titanium mounting plate has a 20 mm long slot.

The weld on Sicuro shows attention to detail. Silca Sicuro titanium bottle cage. © C. Lee / Cyclocross Magazine

The cage includes mounting bolts made of 6Al/4V titanium, with small flange-like washers under the bolt heads. They provide a larger surface area at the cage mounting holes than cap screws or machine screws, but maintain a low screw head profile.

The Silca cap (right) has a larger surface area than the standard steel cap (left). Silca Sicuro titanium water bottle cage. © C. Lee / Cyclocross Magazine

This is some attention to detail, but we also noticed that for slotted mounting holes, a larger screw surface area is required to prevent the cage from sliding on rough terrain when it is full of bottles.

The wide-head screw flange and the slotted mounting seat firmly fix the cage. Silca Sicuro titanium bottle cage. © C. Lee / Cyclocross Magazine

The Silca Sicuro cage weighs 31 grams, which is quite light. The total weight of this pair of double titanium screws is 3 grams. For reference, the popular competing titanium cage weighs 35 grams.

After installation, we found that the force of placing and removing bottles in Sicuro was comparable to other cages that we successfully used in bumpy gravel rides. We also found that due to the quality of the metal used in this application, a well-designed titanium cage is the safest.

Even on rough roads, Sicuro can hold our bottle. Silca Sicuro titanium bottle cage. © C. Lee / Cyclocross Magazine

Sicuro's $70 price tag is comparable to other competing carbon and titanium bottle cages. This may seem high for accessories that are often forgotten, but if you hear a lot of complaints about missing bottles and broken cages, Silca Sicuro may be the perfect gift.

Silca claims that it has invested a lot of research and development in Sicuro. It outlines the durability and retention tests they conducted before launching Sicuro this year. Silca provides a 25-year Shield warranty to support the cage, so you can be confident in its performance. We will report on the performance of this beautiful cage in terms of bottle retention and durability during the gravel season that started this spring.

Silca Sicuro is a bottle cage that provides durability and ensures that the recipient stays in shape during next year's group ride.

Price: $70 Weight: 31 grams Material: 3Al/2.5V Titanium Additional: Two 6Al/4V Ti head flange screws, 3 grams/pair Warranty: Silca Shield 25 years More information: silca.cc

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