A hydro-pack, or hydration backpack, is a liquid carrying
system used to allow people to drink without stopping what they are doing and
completely hands free. The hydro-pack generally has three constituent elements:
a reservoir or bladder that holds most of the water, a hose or tube that runs
between the reservoir and the user’s mouth, and a bite valve that allows the
user to turn on or off the flow of water with their mouth. Initially designed
for mountain bikers and motocross riders that needed to be able to drink
without using their hands or stopping, now hydro-packs are used by virtually
all competitive sports that require the athlete to carry their water as well as
the military.
Since hydro-packs are usually used in conjunction with
strenuous physical activity, they have a habit of getting quite filthy. This is
most noticeable with respect to the bite valve and the end of the hose attached
to it, but is true of the whole system. Despite having flow back vales and
other devices meant to help prevent excessive backwash, plenty of backwash
still happens and there is also plenty of opportunity for microbes, bacteria,
and fungal spores to contaminate the system. Further, the generally cool, dark,
and moist conditions found inside of most hydro-packs serves as an excellent
growth environment for these various contaminants.
Therefore, to avoid both potentially illness causing
contamination and to keep the water (or other liquid) tasting properly, it is
important to carefully clean out your hydro-pack on a regular basis. While some
users do not worry with this as much, there are many reported cases of people
rendering their hydro-packs useless by failing to clean them out regularly. The
water can become so contaminated that it becomes undrinkable after time and
though some hydro-packs are inexpensive, most cost enough that it is better to
keep it clean and functional than to allow them to become unusable.
Basic cleaning
In general, in order to keep your hydro-pack clean, there are
a series of basic steps to be taken. First, once you are finished using it, you
should empty all the water out of it. This is much more important if you use
other liquids than pure water, like sports drinks, which usually contain
additional ingredients that can serve as food for microbes or fungal spores.
Either way, once you have finished your sporting event, you should empty all
the liquid from your hydro-pack and take the hydration elements apart: detach
the hose from both reservoir and the bite valve.
The key to cleaning your hydro-pack is to scrub it down with
a cleaning agent, rinse it out (again with a cleaning agent) and then allow the
whole system to dry out thoroughly. This will, more often than not, wipe out
all contaminants and retard the growth of any that may survive the process.
Doing this on a regular basis can ensure that your hydro-pack will last for a
very long time and that you will get your money’s worth from it.
What cleaning agents
to use
Cleaning out the reservoir, or bladder, used to be the
hardest part of maintaining older model hydro-packs because they were not
designed well for external access. Whether using a hard plastic reservoir or a
pliable, soft-shelled bladder, the access holes were too small to allow easy
cleaning and this discouraged users from putting anything besides water in
their packs and also discouraged people from cleaning the units altogether.
Most modern hydro-packs have addressed this concern by either creating much
larger holes, or – in the case of units made by Hydrapak – creating fully
reversible bladders than can be turned completely inside out.
Once the reservoir is empty, the first step is to scrub it
down. besides the rather costly cleaning agents sold by the producers of
hydration packs, the most popular cleaning agents are bleach solutions and
sodium bicarbonate. The antiseptic nature of bleach is well attested to and it
kills almost all foreign contaminates, but it can hurt the inside of some
reservoirs, lead to a disgusting taste afterward and can potentially make the
user ill if not cleaned out properly. Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda or baking
powder), has much the same affect as bleach, though it is possible that organic
contaminants may survive initial treatment, but also eliminates any bad taste
or odor and poses no threat to either the reservoir or the user.
Beyond bleach solution and a sodium bicarbonate, people use
lots of alternatives. Vinegar is a common substitute for sodium bicarbonate and
has much the same effect. Similarly some people swear by the use of other
substances, such as antibacterial mouthwash, denture cleaning tablets,
iodine-based water purification tablets, and lemon/lime juice. Realistically,
as long as your rinse your reservoir out well after scrubbing it down and then
allow it to dry out thoroughly, any of these substances should work fine.
The real key is to keep the hydro-pack open and allowing it
to completely dry out between usages. More than the darkness or the warmth, it
is the moisture that really allows the contaminants to thrive, so developing a
means of allowing the entire system to dry out thoroughly is vital. One
alternative to this that has been suggested by some users, especially those
that live in extremely humid locations where drying is much more difficult, has
been to store the whole hydration system in a container full of isopropyl
alcohol (rubbing alcohol), which has much the same effect as drying it out.
