Masters of this little kingdom are Kevin and Chris. They have a full machine shop back here, with metalworking, plastics, rapid prototyping and a full sewing facility and are able to knock up prototypes in short order to test an idea. In a matter of a day or so, someone can say ‘Hey, how about…’ and be trying it out on the trails to see if it actually works.They also run the machines that test, tweak and tear prototypes and production models to make sure they can stand up to constant use. Do you know how many bites a bite valve can sustain? I don’t either, but Kevin does…
Here's a die for the new Antidote bladder - you can see the embossing moulds where the Camelbak logo and volume markings are embossed onto the polyurethane of the bladder.
Here's how the bladder starts. The lab has the ability to do full seam welding and makes its own dies for trying new stuff out.
Big bladder: That's a regular Antidote bladder on the left. The one on the right is a military issue bladder for a water-carrying pack designed for refilling other Camelbaks in the field.
Seth shows us the huge military water reservoir refuelling pack. Apparently wearing one of these full of mixed margaritas can make you very popular at parties.
Your boffins: Chris (left) used to work at Bontrager Cycles in Santa Cruz and Kevin (right) builds his own frames, so you could say that they have pretty good cycling credentials, as well as being pretty smart engineers. They hid all the REALLY secret stuff too.
Cutaway bottle valves in plastic. It makes it much easier to describe the bit you mean when you can point at it.
This machine chomps down on 20 bite valves at a time, many times a minute. It can be set for different teeth sizes and jaw strengths and is designed to punish the bite valves in a realistic, but repeatable way.
This machine tests the join between the reservoir opening and the bladder itself. It gets twisted and jiggled to simulate years of abuse.
This machine pulls and twists the bladder as if wringing it out constantly. If a seam's going to, it'll probably go here - and if not, then they'll just explode it for fun.
Mills and presses for every bit of machining you might need.
Both the test engineers come from families of engineers. This kind of lore gets passed down. There's a 16th edition at Kevin's house.
Sanding and grinding - usually used for prototyping, but can be used to see how materials might scuff up in real life.
The guys can make or alter entire packs, though they prefer to get their suppliers to do the bag prototyping, seeing as it'll be closer to the final production method if they do.
Military issue, tactical gloves for pilots, snipers and so on... And in the foreground, that looks a lot like a margarita rim-salter, though we're sure there's some innocent explanation for it.
Webbing and cord for making up bags, or tying down disobedient journos.
A bladder die in the press, ready to emboss stuff.
Sometimes a simple tool like an electric paint can shaker/mixer is used to test how durable a Camelbak bottle is. It's shaken thousands of times a minute to check for leaks and bits falling off.
And, at the end of the Secret Test Lab tour, if you’re good, and ask nicely, the guys will show just how durable their polyurethane Antidote bladders are. The seams are sonic-welded and are so strong that it’s nearly always the material that gives out first – but even that takes a while. Kevin inflated a regular 2L Antidote bladder until it was the size of a Space Hopper… then the hose blew off, so we had another go and eventually the bladder gave out with a huge pop. Looking at the remains, the internal baffle (which went pop well before the bladder did) didn’t fail at the seam, but some way across the material, confirming Camelbak’s confidence in its material and welding choice.
Still a ways to go - Kevin stands respectfully back from the enlarging space hopper
This apparatus is usually used for cycling water through bladders and flow meters and the like, but on special occasions, they get to blow stuff up!
Seth models the latest tactical head cooling apparatus. Not.
So, after the big bang, it was time to leave them to fiddle and prod and invent bonkers things to do with water and hydration (and, occasionally, guns) and head off back to catch my plane. We’ll be seeing the new 2012 stuff at this year’s Press Camp press launch in late June – expect to see some new freeride packs. some great matching colours and some new materials. Quite what they might be, well, they’ve not finished blowing them up yet…
Thanks to Seth Beiden, Kevin, Chris, Nyri and everyone else at Camelbak. Sorry about the noise…
With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)
Yep, I had one of those early light blue bladders, came with my mid-90s CamelBak KIMM Sac… was that the first rucksack with a hydration system? Wish I still had mine.
i was part of the original camelbak R&D… well – i had the first type available here, and had my mum sew on some straps and bungies to attach pumps, tubes etc, guess the camelbak teams mums did the same, as they soon started to bring out baks just like it ;o)
I had one of the original rectangular ones and must’ve got through a bladder every few months. As soon as the blue ones came out I never had a leak until a few months back when one got stabbed in transit by something sharp.
I had to buy a new one and could only find Deuter, which in all fairness is nowhere near as good.
Yep, I had one of those early light blue bladders, came with my mid-90s CamelBak KIMM Sac… was that the first rucksack with a hydration system? Wish I still had mine.
Wow – really in depth – thanks.
Interesting how lots of these companies are in really unassuming buildings. (e.g. Yeti)
And they all seem to have a big lunch break to go out and ride the local trails! (yeti again).
i was part of the original camelbak R&D… well – i had the first type available here, and had my mum sew on some straps and bungies to attach pumps, tubes etc, guess the camelbak teams mums did the same, as they soon started to bring out baks just like it ;o)
Have my original KIMM SAC somewhere, and have one the later KIMM Sa’s that I use on every ride !!
I had one of the original rectangular ones and must’ve got through a bladder every few months. As soon as the blue ones came out I never had a leak until a few months back when one got stabbed in transit by something sharp.
I had to buy a new one and could only find Deuter, which in all fairness is nowhere near as good.