Ten years ago this August, on the scorching-hot west Texas plains of Wichita Falls, a former paramedic and novice cyclist, Michael Eidson, participated in his first Hotter 'N Hell Hundred bicycle race. Texas is famous for its heat, where temperatures during the hundred mile race can soar above 1000F and water stops are 2 or 3 hours apart. Michael started well back in the pack of the 1000 riders and quickly learned that reaching for a water bottle mounted on his bike frame was potentially dangerous.
"I kept bumping into people, so I was thinking, there's got to be a better way to get a drink," he said.
After the race, he returned home and began toying with materials familiar to him from nine years as a paramedic. He attached medical tubing to an I.V. bag, stuffed the bag into a sock, and sewed the sock onto the back of a T-shirt. One ride with the contraption sold him on the idea, which he dubbed the CamelBak for its hump-like shape on a cyclist's back. Today, CamelBak's headquarters are located outside San Francisco, CA in a small town called Petaluma. We've expanded with an R&D center to handle new product development and design and established an international office in Europe to handle the growing popularity of CamelBak products overseas.
To contact any of our offices, please see the section "Contacting CamelBak." While we've grown tremendously since the early days, one thing hasn't changed. We still believe in the performance advantage that proper hydration delivers for just about any activity.
