Gfyuki

Last year, I used some plastic clamps I bought from a LBS to mount two stainless steel Salsa water bottle cages to my rigid fork as shown in this picture:

Unfortunately, the plastic clamps wouldn't tighten sufficiently so as soon as I hit the first downhill on plain old pavement, one of the water bottle cages slid into my spokes. This significantly deformed the Salsa cage and damaged at least one spoke knocking my wheel slightly out of true.

Now (after the fact), I know that Salsa stainless steel cages have slits that can be used with stainless steel hose clamps. I want to try mounting Salsa SS cages to my rigid fork again using stainless steel clamps from a hardware store instead of the plastic style clamps I got from an LBS. Only this time, I want the cages to stay in place for a 200 mile gravel ride.

My suspicion is that the stainless steel clamps will tighten much better than the plastic clamps did so the cages will be much less likely to move, but now that I'm transitioning to gravel, the stakes are higher.

If I try this again with stainless steel clamps, is there anything extra I can do (besides installing braze-ons or rivet nuts) that will keep the cages from rotating on a 200 mile gravel ride?

I was thinking I could get some really strong "string" and somehow tie it to my cages and brake posts to prevent rotation, but the strongest "string" I know of is fishing or weed eater line and that doesn't seem to tie in knots very well.

Hose clamps should be more than adequate, although they will chew up the paint on your forks. You might consider an intermediate layer (could be as simple as electrical tape) to protect the paint. And of course give the setup a shakedown ride, and monitor it during the big ride.

There are strings that are stronger than fishing line (you can get carbon-fiber or dyneema yarns), but it wouldn't be feasible to tie them with sufficient clamping force.

I'd look closely at your bottle cages and see if the rear straight bit has any sort of tang that could be bent/curved a little.

Then I'd consider mounting the bottle on the top of the fork leg so that the top of the cage "leans over" the curve at the top of the fork, the fork crown if it was traditional.

Then use two hose clamps per side, with one above and one below the cage. The curve will help stop the cage from rolling into the wheel forwards or backwards. Mind out for interference with your V brakes though.

Added bonus, bottles will be easier to reach if a bit higher.