Kleen Kanteen Flip D-Ring Cap

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 2 out of 5
Yeah, but: Who doesn't love carabiners?

The Long Version: While my household has a growing collection of Kleen Kanteen bottles – seven and counting – the D-Ring Flip is the first extra cap I've bought. It fits their wide-mouth bottles, of which I own two, and it changes them to have a boxier profile. Like the other wide-mouth caps, the interior is steel, and the cap needs to be washed by hand.

There's certainly no doubt about the construction quality of the cap, and it helpfully even has a couple of little depressions to make lifting the D-ring easier. The plastic rim stands taller than the metal ring, and the brand name is recessed into the sides to give it a little grip. Not much, but a little – more would be better.

The advantage of the D-ring is that its narrow profile makes it easy to attach to a carabiner, something that the standard cap isn't the best for. The tradeoff is that it just isn't as comfortable or easy to open as the larger plastic design.

When it comes to compactness, I'm not really sure that there's much gain. The folded-down D-ring cap is less than two centimetres shorter than the standard wide-mouth design, bringing the total height of my insulated bottle from 26cm to 24cm. That's not a huge space saving to justify the $8.95.

I bought the D-ring cap without seeing it in person – it was an Amazon add-on to cross the free shipping threshold. If I had seen it in the stores I probably still would have bought it, as much for the novelty and variety as anything else. It does solve the problem of needing an easy `biner attachment point, but it's hardly a must-have accessory.

last updated 5 feb 2012