Water bottle mount on an oversized downtube

[bulldog1935]

I've been through the Elite,

the Velo Orange - VO copied T/A, and there are only a few cages with tabs long enough to work with these (oddly VO cages don't work with them)

I have the King Cage clamps on two bikes, and the reliability is over the top. Just put down a layer of helicopter tape, or here I used strips from leftover handlebar leather

I certainly don't think they detract from the looks of the two bikes

I'll always be a form follows function guy.
The only thing that's supposed to be about bikes is that bikes are supposed to be ridden.
That's always been the case, as far back as you can go with bicycles.
Whatever function facilitates the bike being ridden is correct for the bike.

 

[Andrew Gorman]

These are a little chunky, but could be ground down thinner and painted- 1.25" electrical conduit clips:
https://d3501hjdis3g5w.cloudfront.net/images/products/zoom/604-topaz-3.jpg

 

[The Spokemaster]

Thanks for that tip. I didn't know Hi-E made bottle cages. I looked, and it seems they made them so they can mount either with standard braze-on fittings, or a single hose clamp through the slot in the middle. These may well have appeared on odd-sized bikes like my Teledyne in the day, but I still can't warm to the hose clamp look, I guess. Just today, my Elite bottle mount adapters arrived from Lithuania(!), so I guess I'll see how they look on there. They are large alloy pieces, and the cage will sit above the tube, so it is an aesthetic experiment!

The hose clamp used on the Hi-e cage is 'undersized' in width ....looks very 'minimalist' ....that's kinda the lens that Harlan viewed bicycles through

 

[bulldog1935]

One more example I left off - KlickFix - it's essentially a single hose clamp that doesn't look like a hose clamp.