Protect What You Love: POW x Bivo Water Bottle Designed by Sarah Sturm
Photos by Gretchen Powers
When professional gravel cyclist and POW Bike Alliance member Sarah Sturm picked up her pencil to design POW’s latest collaboration with Bivo, she didn’t start at a desk. She started on her bike.
Sarah has spent the last nine years racing long-distance gravel professionally, carving her way through high deserts and mountain terrain. But before the podiums and the miles, she was an artist, and this collaboration gave her a chance to be both at once.
“When you’re chugging along on five or six hour rides it gets kind of boring out there,” Sarah laughs, “so brainstorming on the bike was where I started.”
For the Bivo bottle design, Sarah leaned into the tools she knows best: pencil and paper. What emerged from those sketchbooks was a design rooted in her love of textiles, bold shapes, and simple messaging. The bottle features flower petals woven into lettering, blooms that morph into bicycle wheels, and an abstract cyclist whose head is crowned with flowers.
“I didn’t want to have something that was too polarizing on there because you want people to enjoy the artwork in this context,” Sarah says.
The result is something intentionally joyful. It’s a visual antidote to the anxiety that often surrounds climate conversations. “I feel like it’s a fun opportunity to bring in some lightness and joy,” Sarah says. “When you’re using the bottle, I hope that you’re on a bike or on a hike or hanging outside. It’s just a nice little reminder to protect what you love.”
Thinking through the cylindrical canvas of a water bottle presented its own creative puzzle. “The movement of the canvas is kind of fun because when it’s in the cage, only one side will show from one vantage point,” she notes. “It’s kind of a fun way to think of it as multiple pieces of art if you want it to be, or it can be sort of a continuous theme.”
For Sarah, this project was also about reclaiming a part of herself. As her athletic career accelerated, her art quietly fell to the background.
“The more serious my cycling career got, art has sort of fallen by the wayside,” she admits. But this collaboration served as a reminder that identity doesn’t have to be singular. “It’s nice to remember that we’re all really busy and we all wear a lot of hats… but it’s also okay to focus back on other parts of your life that you’ve missed. Just because you’re not doing that thing every single day, it can still be a part of you.”
She also embraced the imperfection that comes with returning to a creative practice, letting go of the athletic perfectionism that can creep into every pursuit. “Artwork doesn’t have to be pen to paper, paintbrush to canvas,” she reflects. “It can take a lot of forms just as long as you’re trying to think creatively.”
The POW x Bivo bottle, designed by Sarah Sturm, is available now. Every bottle purchased supports POW’s work protecting the places we ride, ski, and adventure in. Snag yours before they’re gone!
Author: Stacie Sullivan
Stacie always knew she wanted to pursue a career in the ski industry from a young age, having first clicked into skis at the age of 4 and writing her 8th grade career project on being a professional skier. While her dreams of becoming a professional athlete didn’t quite pan out the way she planned at […]
