Last week when Josh published his Otso Hoot Ti hardtail review, he fielded a lot of questions about the accessories used to add extra bottle cage and accessory mounts to the bike’s frame. As a companion to the bike review, Josh takes a closer look at Wolf Tooth’s clever B-Rad System below.

Hack or Tool?

My kids and I occasionally watch TikTok videos of people reacting to other TikTok videos. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure, but we have fun with it. But when the app disappears from our phones in the near future, I’m not gonna be too mad about it. Our two current favorite accounts are Chef Reactions and Hack Reacts. A man known as the “Bearded Bard” helms the latter channel and identifies if videos use hacks to solve problems or simply use tools for their intended purposes.

Wolf Tooth’s B-Rad System is a collection of tools, all meant to hack your bike. So, the following is a bike hack using tools.

When I received the Otso Cycles Hoot Ti to review last month, I was excited to ride the well-appointed titanium hardtail. Still, I was also a little bummed to see there was only one location to mount a water bottle inside the frame’s front triangle.

Moarrrr Mounts, Please

Otso designed the Hoot for riders to fit as much dropper post travel as possible and, accordingly, the frame can fit most 200mm travel droppers fully slammed in a size S frame with room to spare. This dropper fitment comes at the expense of seat tube braze-ons.

This is nothing new, of course, and lack of bottle and/or gear storage is a problem that has plagued riders of smaller-sized frames and full suspensions for decades. Even some larger hardtails (like the Hoot) only have a single inner triangle water bottle mounting location. As a desert-dweller and generally thirsty person, this boggles my mind.

Without going into too much detail about the limitations of certain frame types or the innovative approach some designers have taken to overcome these, many riders are left with few options. And this is where Wolf Tooth’s B-Rad system comes in.

The Cotic FlareMAX John reviewed had limited options for bottle mounting, which was improved by adding a 4-slot B-Rad base to move the factory mounts aftward.

Wolf Tooth B-Rad System

The B-Rad system is a collection of components in Wolf Tooth’s wide-ranging catalog. The product line now includes everything from Morse Cages to side-mounting bottle adapters and roll-top bags, which can all be used individually or together in creative ways.

The system’s foundation and most popular item are the B-Rad Mounting Bases. These machined aluminum plates come in three sizes (two, three, and four slots) and relocate existing bottle mounts to make room for more bottles, bigger bottles, or gear storage. Then there’s an Everywhere Base that uses foam pads and silicone-backed hook-and-loop straps to add mounts pretty much anywhere on a frame. Morse Cargo Cages also fall into this lineup, as the dash-dot mounting pattern adds loads of versatility.

One of Many B-Rad Use Cases

To quote my Hoot review:

“Thankfully, they did add a 4-pack of mounts to the downtube and, determined to carry more than one bottle in the frame, I asked Otso to send a few Wolf Tooth B-Rad configurations along with the bike, and I got creative. There’s also a 2-pack on the downtube’s underside, but I only use this location for water storage rather than quick bottle access because I don’t like drinking dirt or whatever else finds its way to my bottle cap.”

“Most brands would probably frown on me cluttering their tastefully designed frame with straps, aluminum strips, and zip ties. Still, Otso figured it was a great way to show off the usefulness of their sibling brand’s clever accessories. I fit a B-Rad 2, B-Rad 4, and an Everwhere Base. Now, on the XL frame, I can ride with three water bottles of various sizes and an Accessory Strap with 0.6 L Roll-Top Bag.”

 

At first, I tried the Double Bottle Adapter on the upper slots of the Hoot’s four-pack mounts. It worked fine, and I didn’t rub my legs on the bottles as I thought I might, but it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing. So I experimented with multiple B-Rad bases to find a workable solution. Shifting the bottom two slots back and adding four more in front proved perfect for fitting two water bottles in the frame. And the Everywhere Base close to the headtube supports an Accessory Mount and TekLite Roll-top Bag.

If this were a long-term bike, I might opt to have a custom frame bag made, which I’d leave on year-round (even when not touting) as I do with a couple of my other bikes. However, the B-Rad System was the clutch for this project because it’s simple, secure, and attractive.

Pros

• Lots of options for shifting and adding frame mounting points
• Relatively affordable
• Creative combinations are possible for a variety of applications
• Surprisingly secure and stable

Cons

• B-Rad Mounting Base Stack could interfere with some applications

 

See more at Wolf Tooth.

Do you have some extra frame space but not enough attachment points to affix additional items like water bottles or tools? Have you used B-Rad mounts in creative ways? Drop into the comments below and share your solutions with us…