I’m all about hydration, but I don’t think that we really need to carry 70 ounces of water on our backs, do we? I’m not really in the mood to pit, but I just don’t see the point. Does anyone see the point? Can’t we just carry a Nalgene bottle or use the drinking fountains?
I have one for the waist that I carry if I’m running more than six miles, or so.
I’m curious as to why carrying water irks you.
What’s a CamelBak?
Is it anything like a camel toe?
When I was in tech school I’d see some of my friends carry them around with them all the time.
“Dude,” I’d say to them, “You’re not going to die of thirst if you don’t drink water for the 75 feet from here to the water fountain.”
They never did give me a logical answer.
Its not so much the carrying of water as the carrying of the entire day’s worth of water and sucking it through a hose. And not so much people being athletic, but people on the bus, or working at a retail store, or hanging out at a cafe.
No, not really at all. More like this
Dude, if you are hanging out in a cafe you have no earthly reason, NONE WHATSOVER, to be using a camelback.
They look like enema bags to me, and thats all I can think about when I see them. If they were kept on the trails and bikes, I’d never see them. But they just really arn’t appropriate for civilization.
The whole faux urban-explorer things drives me nuts- the North Face jackets in the balmy East Bay, the rediculously ugly high tech vegan trail shoes that see no rougher ground than the wood floors at Trader Joe’s, suspension laptop backpack that go right from the car to the desk and back each day. I’m all for comfort. But this isn’t about comfort, it’s about good old fashioned elitism. Deep in their hearts, where they can’t see it, they are simply trying to show off that they have the leisure time and energy to persue absurd “sports” or at least buy the expensive equiptment “required” for them. It’s the same thing as that stupid, stupid, stupid designer yoga gear but on a different crowd.
Look guys, it’s Oakland, not Mt. Everest. There are no trees or dirt or anything vaguley natural for miles around. And while it may seem like some big adventure to live in a city to your yuppie ass, people have actually lived here for a long, long, time without having to get equipt at REI before going on that daunting BART ride. You really don’t need to strap yourself with cargo pockets and carbiners to do your sit-down tech job. It’s embarrassing for everyone. Just act normal. Gah.
I like the idea of having a day pack that holds water for hiking. When I say hiking, I mean out in the woods where there aren’t any water fountains.
But I hate sucking water out of a tube; it’s so rodent-like…might as well use an excercise wheel and habitrail…
And yeah, you folks with the übergear for walking down the bike path look ridiculous…not that you’ll ever pull your pinhead far enough out of the self-absorption orifice to notice…
I’ve not been privy yet to urbanites wearing eco-udders but should the occasion arise it will be difficult not to laugh in their face. It’s not that fine a line between necessity and trendy and when one crosses it I don’t find it wrong for us to revel in their absurdity.
I wear mine on a daily basis at work. I’ve worn mine (a larger one I affectionately call my “Command Ruck”) in public, in an urban environment. It’s got a shitload of pockets, and my laptop fits neatly into one of the interior ‘backpack’ compartments. It can hold everything except the kitchen sink, which I usually strap onto the back anyway.
I will wear mine proudly in any place, and at any time. And if any of you have a problem with it, I’ll simply take out my drinking tube, take a swig of my 70 oz. martini, and laugh right back at you people.
C’mon now. . . who says the thing’s always filled with water, people?!?
Tripler
Yeah, I know your thinking, “Man, a martini? Why didn’t I think of that?” :smack:
Well, I think it fits in nicely with the culture that feels they have to be within arm’s reach of a water bottle at all times of the day.
I ride my bike a lot. My shortest ride typically is 50km. I take a water bottle with me. On hot days, I fill it with a sports drink like Accelerade to help avoid dehydration and provide a little energy. On a really long ride, I will refill with plain water on the return ride. For a century ride I take a couple of sports gels along.
But I see people take power bars AND gels AND sports drinks AND bananas AND granola AND AND AND… I swear they must gain weight on the ride.
Anyway, it’s a fad and a silly one at that. Is anyone living in an urban/suburban setting ever more than a few hundred yards away from a store that sells bottled water? :dubious:
The only time these packs are useful, IMHO, is on an actual hike or mountain bike trail.
Silly people.
Maybe someday all our downtowns will be filled with people with hydration bladders, catheters & colostomy bags, scooting along on segway shoes, yammering into headsets and typing at virtual keyboards with wi-fi fingers flailing away in midair. Finally we’ll be able to get some things done!
I wouldn’t call it “silly” at all. Why should I pay $1.25 for a bottle of water, when I can Brita-filter my tap water for essentially free?
Tripler
Why pay more?
Really? You get free filters?
Brita is cheap, but not free.
:smack:
But it should be a margarita. The salt provides electrolytes.
[aside to Tripler] The flags arrived yesterday. Tres cool. A big Thank You from my department chair, and a bigger one from me. You rock![/aside]
With as much volume as I put through my filters, yeah, they’re cheap. Doing some rough back-o-the-napkin calculations, I go through one filter every three months ($8.50/3 months = $2.83 / month). I regularly used the full pitcher say, every other day (which I’ll call 3 liters every 2 days = 45 liters-ish a month). So, $2.83 / 45 = $0.06 per liter . . . a mere pittance!
Thus, quoth ‘Murphy’s Laws of Combat’: “If it looks stupid but works, it isn’t stupid.” I’ll let you people wander over to the 7-11 and buy your $1.25 16oz bottle ‘o’ water. I’m happy over here with my 70oz, 12-cent water.
Tripler
The anti-slave to fashion.
[aside reply]
Oh, and silenius, yer welcome! Sorry I couldn’t get F-16s. . .
[/aside reply]
Trip
In any case, in a recent blind taste test, nobody could tell the difference between tap or bottled water- much less filtered. And it’s really highly unlikely that your municipal water supply is tainted with anything harmful- at least, anything harmful that a Brita could work on. Cheap or not, it’s still fussy when water comes out of the walls over every building in America.
Does anyone remember the days when bottled water was more expensive than gasoline?
Huzzah!! You’ve bolstered my arguement. If I didn’t filter it, it’d be free-er!. But there were a few places I’ve been (and took the Brita with me) you could taste somethin’ funny. It helped, it really did. . . Clovis, NM comes to mind.
Tripler
Champion of the cheapskates.