Old post, I know. But times change. If you are using a frame bag, as many are doing these days with touring bikes – then a 3rd cage below the downtube is essential.

I agree with you that 3 bottles are not always necessary, BUT(!) possibility to attach third one (or call it extra one) is always great, specially if you travel in hot climate or uninhabited territory is ahead of you.
Personally, I don’t know why some called ‘touring’ models even miss them – they weight nothing, don’t conflict with any other bike parts and it’s not expensive or high-end engineering (ss couplers in the other hand) to put them on production line. My only guess is that universal bikes are not good for business.

So my point is, if we are talking about touring bikes, we should think
about them as versatile as possible in a topic of carrying racks, water
bottles and luggage in general.
I would even say that it should be 3 bosses/mounting points everywhere for Salsa Anything Cage or just for possibility to move regular cage a bit higher/lower (it comes handy when you use oversized cages for 1.5l bottles etc). But I guess we should wait for that, it’s relatively new.
By the way, the same goes for forks – they should all have bottle mounts on both sides and all standard rack eyelets.

In articles like this ^ when author tries to separate touring bikes from just good weekend-park bikes I guess old-good 3 bidon cages should be a _must_!

Not necessarily. I only found the 3rd bottle cage useful if using a gasoline cooker, since carrying the gasoline inside the panniers will make all the contents stink to it. Otherwise, 2 is more than enough. If I need more water, usually I will have made a stop before running out of water on the 2 bottles, and then I can refill with the extra water stored in the panniers.

I’m glad I could help, Suyin. 🙂

Thanks, I’ve fixed that up.