Field Test

I recently test drove Providence Portland's in bed urinal. While better in many ways to a catheter tube with it's far less invasive, storable design, there are limitations when one's hip and/or pelvis flexibility is in question. That said, installation and removal are exponentially easier than the alternative.

Call it a bottle, receptacle or jug, the model tested has it's drawbacks. Keep in mind that this unit was put through quite a rigorous battery of tests, ridden hard and put away wet. What is important to know is to have a place for it after use. Cafeteria staff in their best efforts to serve are far better at waking patients up to inform them that one can order meals over the phone at their convenience than actually clearing dirty dishes and meal trays from ones bedside table. Add to the bed side table clutter a universal bed, tv and nurse calling devise the size of a Vietnam war era Motorola cell phone yet with an electrical cord the capacity of a refrigerator, a similar era corded digital phone, newspaper, assorted magazines and lung exerciser (for another post) and suddenly finding a place for the steaming bidon of piss to settle far enough to not taint anything like say a box of kleenex is suddenly a real estate nightmare on the portable table/entertainment center.

Should one's 6-mo pregnant wife empty the receptacle because lord only knows when a nurse might answer a call light, latex gloves are usually nearby. however, be warned snapping them on Doctor style is great for tv but in actuality stings like a bitch.

The bottle itself is simply designed like many things of PRO caliber. While Sven Nys might ride certain heavier but more durable pieces of equipment in liue of lighter but less resilient bits, the jug tested is more CHEAP than PRO. The polyethylene terephthalate material that disposable water bottles are made of and also suspected of causing cancer; is what our test bottle is made of and more importantly where I was stuffing my junk for regular re-use. Good thing the Mrs. is already pregnant! Our next kid may just end up going to Community College. I'm not dissin the CC after all I had 3 1/2 wonderful years there. I'm just sayin that like most bike racers if my kid wants to be PRO -that's alot of scratch for white bar tape, white shoe covers and Assos kit. The road from the CC to the world is more Arranburg than plaza San Remo and unbeknownst to the American cycling consumer, the road to Roubaix ends at a coal mine not an office tower.

Much how a Freshman English class is the same but different at Harvard or the CC, this bottle has similar but different features to other receptacles used in the past to cleanly retain urine whether on a plane or a train, in a hospital gown or around town. The handle has a glued seal across it. this seals the handle from functionable liquid storing capacity. In the moments when calculating rate of flow, distance from edge of the opening and angle of the bottle, having an extra 2 oz overflow reservoir can't be a bad thing. A guy works hard to start the race at all, there are few things worse than racing past the finish line for another lap after it's all over.

The opening is rough like a Flemish climb and of course smells about the same. Flanders and this bottle were rough on my wiener. The lid has a major recession that screams out liability in the event of fluid displacement like a teen-ager in a puffy coat wielding a disposable camera on Alpe d'Hueze cries MORON. All in all, I rate the Prov Portland in bed urine receptacle a 3/10 for things I can and have pissed into. The PRO solution is ceramic -like all things it's all about ball bearings these days.

This however is UroPRO!