Fueling is always going to be an essential part of any triathlon strategy. At the end of the day—no matter how hard you trained—if you screw up your fuel strategy, you screw up your race. As a case in point, look at Mirinda Carfrae at the 2012 World Championships. A single lost bottle may have very well kept her from winning it all. A year later, with her fuel properly stored, Mirinda found herself at the top of the podium and broke both the overall course record and the marathon course record. Every racer will have their own strategy (we covered ours in our hydration guide), but most likely you are going to need a bit more fuel than your BTA bottle is going to be able to carry; a refill is in order. Some will look for a rear carrier, but others want to mount a bottle on the down or seat tube. And Profile Design has an solution.

The RZ2 is Profile Design’s successor to their original Razor Bottle System and has incorporated many of the lessons they learned from the original. The biggest change is the shape of both the bottle and the cage. The original Razor, while good, was not the easiest bottle to grab from the cage. The new bottle solves that by giving you a larger surface area as well as strategically placed recessed grips on the bottle. The new shape comes with two penalties—a 5g weight gain and a loss of 6oz of liquid.

While PD did not provide a direct comparison of their two bottles, they did provide a comparison between a standard round bottle and the RZ2.

The test was conducted at FASTER in Scottsdale. And while PD did not give us their exact criteria, they did specify that the test was done on a bike with wheels, aerobars, and cranks (no mention of a dummy or human rider).

We spent quite a bit of time riding with the RZ2. From experience, we know that these types of bottles can oftentimes be difficult to access during a ride, especially if the bottle is wet. But the RZ2 does a great job mitigating that issue with the recessed grips. When you go to grab the bottle, the recessed grips provide a firm gripping point. However, like other aero bottles, putting the RZ2 back into its cage does require a brief moment of concentration. A standard bottle cage has a fairly large area to place the bottle, but the RZ2 requires a bit more precision to get situated in the cage.

Yes there is a bottle back there!

The RZ2 is a big step forward for Profile Designs’ Razor line. The increased grip definitely makes this a far easier bottle to use than its predecessor. And while we don’t quite believe this bottle is best suited for drinking on the fly (considering the precision to replace the bottle), we find it to be a great refill bottle for an Olympic-distance event. Those extra 14oz may mean the difference between finding yourself on the podium or in the parking lot. And at the end of the day, that’s really all that matters.