Creating Your Own Hydration Pack Modifications

Hydration packs have become almost ubiquitous when it comes to endurance sports and others where people need to be able to drink without stopping or using their hands. Further, they have also become very popular with others who just like the convenience of it, though there is no real need for hands-free hydration or reason not to take a break. With so many people now using hydration packs in a myriad of different applications it can come as no surprise that there is no hydration pack available that satisfies everyone’s personal preferences, so the idea of making custom modifications is getting more popular.

With so many personal preferences and individual tastes, most of the major hydration pack companies – like Camelbak and Hydrapak – have designed a number of more specialized hydration packs for various purposes. For example, Camelbak offers a number of different types of hydration packs that are specific to particular users (men, women, children), particular sports (cycling, hiking, skiing), particular climates (extreme heat, extreme cold) and that have particular features (laptop pockets, MP3 player pouches, etc.). Despite all of these specialized versions, there are still a lot of options that at least some people would like that simply aren’t available.

One popular customization is to add a larger, load bearing waist strap to the hydration pack. Many of the existing hydration packs are designed to ride fairly high of the wearer’s back and therefore either do not have a waist strap at all, or just has a very small one that is not very comfortable. Many people have addressed this by modifying their own hydration packs by adding on a better waist strap, usually about two inches in width.

Another popular customization involves adding additional compression options to the hydration pack. Many hydration packs already come with their own compression straps, but these are not always very effective, especially if you are carrying a lot of gear and the pack is near capacity. Adding additional compression straps and/or compression cords to the pack can help stabilize your load better and significantly improve the manageability of the pack.

One of the most common modifications made by cyclists has been to reroute the path of the hose so that it runs under the wearer’s shoulder instead of over it. The manufacturers typically assume that over the shoulder is better based on the supposition that their hose and valve does not leak and that under the shoulder hoses are more prone to fall down causing all sorts of complications. However, realistically many people find that under the should allows the hose and bite valve to be positioned better for hands-free drinking and handling spills, from either leaks or simply taking in too much water.

In many cases, making your own modifications to your hydration pack may invalidate your warranty, but it can still be well worth the effort. All said, as hydration packs have become more popular and more competition has developed, the price has gone down. As a consequence, buying a new hydration pack is not as significant of an investment as it once was, unless you are using top of the line equipment, in which case you probably will not need to make modifications anyway.