Camelbak care question

[Becky]

Freeze it. I only use water in my hydration bladders, to cut down on maintenance, and store them in the fridge or freezer.

[MollyJ]

When you clean the tube, do you remove the bite valve? Seems like it would be hard but otherwise, I'm not sure you are going to get anything you want done.

These are some great tips.

[ny biker]

Yes I'm pretty sure I used to remove the bite valve for cleaning.

I never thought about freezing the bladder before, but I will definitely do that going forward. Since I don't use my camelback often I like to clean it when I take it out of the closet before a mountain bike ride, and I don't always have time for that. But if it's in the freezer then it's ready to go without cleaning.

[OakLeaf]

The Camelbak-style bite valves, that are the female piece to the male hose, come off pretty easily, and those I do remove.

The Hydrapak-style bite valves, that are the male piece to the female hose, those don't really come off without either loosening the hose so much it won't seal any more, or just cutting it off and shortening the hose. With all the internal hard parts, they're pretty near impossible to clean, too - I wipe them out with Q-tips as best I can and just plan on replacing them when they look too gross.

You can brush the drink tube all the way up to the bite valve even if you can't remove the valve. When I'm drying a hose with the bite valve still attached, I hang it bite valve up, since drainage seems to be more important than evaporation in how quickly it dries, and I just give the valve a squeeze and the whole thing a shake whenever I happen to walk by and think about it.

[rocknrollgirl]

I don't take anything apart. Just run the hot water through, partially fill the bladder, shake it around, drain the hose and in the freezer. We don't hang them to dry, it would take a week. If you use the denture tabs same thing. Toss them in, fill the bladder with warm water, shake it around, run some through the hose, let it it sit. Come back later run it through the hose, rinse well with water, in the freezer.

Done.