Wow, My Coke Bottle Is A Hydration System...
A new drinking tube allows you to convert pretty much any soft drinks bottle into a handy hydration system and will shortly fit Sigg bottles too, but does it work and is it worth the dosh?
Posted: 16 February 2005
by Jon
If you've always secretly dreamed of converting an old Coca Cola
bottle into a fully-fcuntional hydration system, then this is your
lucky day thanks to the new HiGear SmarTube.
 Essentially
it's a hydration tube and bite valve that comes with two bottle caps
that should allow it to screw directly onto most commonly available
plastic drink bottles. There will also, apparently, be a Sigg bottle
adaptor available shortly which will allow you to use the same tube
with your Sigg water borttle.
The clever bit is that the kit incorporates a one-way valve that
sits in the bottle cap and sucks in air as you breathe. Without it a
vaccuum would form in the bottle and make it harder and harder to
extract any water at all. So does it work?
We grabbed an old Diet Coke bottle, fed the contents to a passing
dog and screwed the tube and cap into place after filling with water.
First suck and success, water comes out of the blue bite valve.
Unfortunately in standard trim, the bite valve is pretty low flow, a
bit like trying to suck up a millkshake through a very narrow
straw.
We confirmed this by substituting a Camelbak valve, which gave a
massively better flow and allowed the SmarTube to work as intended -
without it, it's simply hard work. A semi-solution was to use a sharp
knife to enlarge the slit in the standard valve to allow a higher
volume flow. Unfortunately, a trade-off from this was to allow water
to leak from the valve if the slightest pressure was applied to the
bottle, as would happen when carried in a loaded pack.
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