CamelBak Is Born
Almost 20 years ago 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, like Australia is famous for its heat, where temperatures during the hundred mile race can soar above 35°C 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 north of San Francisco, California in a small town called Petaluma (it's the same town that George Lucas shot the film American Graffiti) and have gradually expanded to have over 100 staff that support three distinct Camelbak product areas:
Recreational - Military & Law Enforcement - Industrial
And a distribution network that now covers the entire globe
