A few years back, Robby and I were in the thick of parenting chaos (still are with #2) with our little bottle-challenged daughter, Svea. She was on a mission to reject every bottle in sight. We had to test bottle after bottle and always hated the idea of feeding her out of plastic. We appreciate her stubbornness but damn, that was a stressful one! Thankfully, she finally gave in and went straight to a glass sippy cup that was a win for all of us.

Whelp, the cold weather has finally settled across the US as many of us winter lovers were anxiously awaiting true January conditions. Snow fell in Vermont and the team has been out for backcountry and Nordic sessions and we are all loving it. 

Let’s talk bike water bottle cage fit – it’s an important topic when it comes to safety on the bike. We did some serious testing when developing the Bivo One cycling water bottle and the Bivo One has a universal cage fit as a result!

We have been following the Tour de Ski quite closely (Charlotte from our team was actually there watching and I’m not sure about you, but I’m JEALOUS).  Ben Ogden got his first World Cup podium on Saturday. He was the third fastest man in the world (and he chooses to drink from a Bivo, just saying 😉). WILD.

What a year it has been, thanks to all of you! Running a small business is crazy hard but equally crazy fun and we are so happy to have you along with us for the ride. We are just closing out of third full year and wanted to share some highlights from 2023:

Snow has been falling in Richmond recently and the office morning runs have transitioned into skis at the local nordic center, Sleepy Hollow! As a recently retired member of the Middlebury nordic ski team and new member of the Bivo team, these group skis are helping me settle into my first winter skiing entirely for fun and my own joy! I’ve been shuffling around on nordic skis since I could walk, and growing up in Vermont instilled a deep love of snow and all winter activities in me that will last a lifetime. I know that a lot of the Bivo readers are big cyclists, so I figured that a blog with some skate skiing tips for cyclists could be a pretty good idea. I’m no expert, but I hope that with 8+ years of being coached by the best in the biz (thank you AJ and Sverre), I will have picked up a few essential tips that I can pass on to anyone looking to get into the sport!

What the hell is performance hydration? It’s a new thing, that we kind of created without even know we were doing it. We wanted to drink out of less plastic and make something that lasted longer. I hate the taste of plastic, and quite frankly, have always thought it if tasted bad, it couldn’t be good for us.

“Haha, that has to be spam” I said in all seriousness six weeks ago to an email that had caught our team’s attention.

Before Bivo, Carina and I spent our time working with startups in the footwear space for nearly 10 years. It was like a crash course in everything to do right (and sometimes wrong) while launching your idea to the world. If there is one theme we never let go of it was ensuring we didn’t overlook one piece of the business and fall flat on our naive faces. Too often it felt like incredible product gurus missed sorting out sales or great salespeople missed what the broad word marketing involved. 

Apple cider is pretty damn good. Warm apple cider is even better. Especially when you get it fresh from local apple orchards in Vermont. It’s amazing the things you get reintroduced to when you have young kids. I’ve had more apple cider and hot chocolate over the last 5 years since my daughter was born than I have had combined since I was in middle school and I’m pretty happy about it.

Nordic skiing has a special place in my heart and always will. I was basically born into the sport and most of my strong memories as a child include two skinny skis under foot. When we moved back to Vermont, we had the pleasure of meeting Ben Ogden. Ben is a professional cross country ski racer who loves to have fun, make others laugh and is damn fast. Last season, he ended the World Cup circuit as the top U23 male skier in the entire world. That, my friends, is remarkable, and it's so fun to watch. Ben pops into the Bivo office to steal some peanut butter or bagels from Sam post workout and to add some laughs to the room. We feel lucky to know him, have him as a product tester and ultimately sponsor him this ski season. Check out his interview we did with him below and follow his adventures along on both his instagram account and his new YouTube Channel.

Sport was always such an important and large part of my childhood. From the time I can remember, I was chasing my older sister and her friends around through the woods, thinking it was so cool that I got to participate even though I was younger. Cross country skiing was our family sport, and it was a unique one for me to grow up in because boys and girls always were treated the same. We didn’t have a “boys” team and a “girls” team. 

Robby and Mark have been hard at work creating a guide to pick the best bottle for you! We have heard that it is sometimes hard to know which bottle does what when visiting our site and this new page is an attempt to make that easier. Some of you in the high heat areas make me laugh at events when you find out we have both non-insulated and insulated models when you comment “why would you even want one without insulation?!”