Ten years ago this August, on the
scorching-hot west Texas plains of Wichita Falls, a former paramedic and 
novice
cyclist, Michael Edison 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 100°F 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 Francicso, 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 France
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