You and your riding buddies have just finished an all day mountain bike adventure and you are back at the car digging into the cooler to reward yourselves with a tasty beverage. Where’s the bottle opener?!?! There are none on your key chains and no one in the parking lot has one. Sure, you are mountain bikers and nothing is going to keep you from a cold bottle of suds, but slamming the bottle on the side of the guard rail can often lead to a sudsy mess and half of your hard earned beer on the ground. StemCAPtain has come to the rescue with their headset top cap that doubles as a bottle opener.
This past VeloSwap in Denver, we had a chance to chat with Mike Hogan, one of the StemCAPtain owners, who handed us a bottle opener to try. Bikes and beer goes hand and hand, so on the bike this opener went. The installation was just as easy as the StemCAPtain Clock and StepCAPtain Thermometer that we tested earlier this year and the entire install took less than two minutes to put on the bike.
The StemCAPtain Bottle Opener has two jobs to perform, properly adding enough compression to the headset bearings and opening a beer or soda bottle. Some people might debate this, the first job is infinitely more important. The StemCAPtain Bottle Opener is a USA manufactured, precision machined aluminum or titanium part (depending on the model purchased) that fits with a conventional 1-inch or 1-1/8-inch threadless stem and headset setup. Just like all of the other StemCAPtain products that we have reviewed, if the original headset top cap uses a 5mm bolt, this replacement stem cap will fit in its place. The StemCAPtain Bottle Opener performs the task of compressing the headset bearings perfectly and as a bonus, matches the red of a Chris King headset. It does have some limitations when being used with fork that has a carbon fiber steer tube, and if you have one, those are detailed in the previous reviews (see the links above).
The second job of the StemCAPtain Bottle Opener is as the name implies – open beer bottles (or basically any beverage container with a bottle cap). Sure, bring cans of beer or Budweiser to the trailhead and this product is unnecessary, and if all you drink is beer with twist-offs, then you can stop reading here. For those who enjoy ‘tastier’ beers or Mexi-Cokes, you will need an opener. During the initial installation, the Bottle Opener was positioned with the center groove parallel to the top tube of the bike. Even with the bike laid on the side, some beer was lost when opening the bottle due to the angle that bottle needed to be held upon opening. The better position for this opener was to mount it with the center groove perpendicular to the top tube. The bike could then be put in a ‘wheelie’ position when opening a bottle. Not riding and opening a beer, but while holding the rear brake, pull the bike up onto its rear wheel to open the bottle. This puts the opener in the best position to open a bottle without spilling.
The opening of a bottle was pretty easy, but it did require the opening motion to be done twice. When the StemCAPtain Bottle Opener is not mounted on the bike, a bottle cap can be removed in one motion – insert the unopened bottle into the opener and pop it off just like a regular bottle opener. When mounted on the bike, the 5mm stem bolt hex cap sits just high enough to not allow the bottle cap to be seated all of the way into the StemCAPtain Bottle Opener – insert the unopened bottle into the opener, pry a little of the cap off, twist the bottle left or right a few degrees and finish opening the bottle. Ultimately the job is accomplished.
As you can see from the photos, the finish of the softer aluminum is slightly marred by the harder steel bottle cap. This does not seem to affect how the opener works and can be viewed as a badge of use. If the marred finish does bug you, but you still like the idea of always having a bottle opener handy, go for the polished aluminum or titanium versions and the marred finish should not be an issue.
The StemCAPtain Bottle Opener has a MSRP of $14.95 to $29.95 depending on the material and finish selected and are available on their website or through select retailers. If you are still wondering where the ‘technology’ is in this product, it’s in the bottle, fool! This is just the key to unlock it.
Pros:
– Easily installation
– Opens beer bottles and works perfectly as a replacement top cap
– Red matches Chris King headsets
Cons:
– Does not work with threadless headsets that do not use a 5mm bolt
– Finish becomes marred when used
– Does not open a bottle in one motion (at least with a Chris King 5mm bolt installed)
Material: 7075-T6 high strength aircraft grade aluminum or 6Al-4V Titanium
MSRP: $14.95-$29.95
Weight: 12 grams (aluminum) and 18 grams (titanium)
Country of Manufacture: USA