Fanylion Mountain Bike Team
Official site of the Fanylion Mountain Bike Team. Includes mountain bike ride guides, gear reviews, bike maintenance, team reports and rider profiles of the Fanylion Racing Team.
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Source Extensor Hydration Pack
My Camelbak Blowfish was starting to look a bit battered; the straps kept slipping whilst riding and the bladder was looking and tasting a bit manky. Time for a new hydration pack. I wanted something with a little more load carrying ability than the Blowfishes 12 litre (extendable to 15litre) capacity, and with a 3 litre bladder. Always keen to try something new, I bought a Source Extensor from Wiggle for £61 (reduced from rrp of £65).
First impressions were good. The grey and black colours of the pack look understated, plus reflective piping for those winter night rides. The materials, cited as ‘PU coated 300D mini rip stop X4’, are superb and feel tough and will be very hard wearing. The padded shoulder straps have a waist belt and sternum strap, both adjustable (though waist strap has too much excess strap). The carrying position of the pack is good. One problem with my Blowfish was that I always felt it sat too low on my back. The Extensor sits higher and feels much better, though on several steep descents I found the top of the pack pushed on the back of my helmet.
There is a nice large main compartment flap closed by a high quality plastic buckle. There is a bungee cord for storing stuffed jacket/helmet on the outside; 2 small mesh pockets (I use to store an inner tube in each), 2 shoulder pockets (one for mobile phone, one for energy bars); but then it just gets crazy. After opening the clamshell design flaps to get inside, there are 5 smaller pockets which when used limit the amount of kit you can get in the main compartment. The small pockets are OK, I store multi tools, tyre levers, suncream and car keys in them, but some are an odd shape and one is so small it is unusable. It is also necessary to open the pack completely to access them, not good when it is lashing it down with rain and you are struggling to get your tyre levers out.
Another feature of the pack is the ‘moulded Polypropylene back panel’ that gives the pack it’s tough, hard-backed shape, like a proper hiking rucksack. Coupled with a mesh back next to your body and 6 large pads, this should work well to keep air flowing down your back to keep you cool. In practice however this does not happen. The main problem is that when you load a full bladder, it pushes the curved plastic panel in on itself, so instead of creating a concave shape it makes a convex, digging into your back. This pressure on your back decreases as you consume fluid from the bladder, but this is a major design fault which is only exacerbated if the pack is full of other gear.
And this leads me on to another gripe. The load volume is stated as 20litres: shoorly shome mishtake? If using a full bladder I have to insert the bladder first, then with most of the inner pockets in use I am lucky if I can get any more than a spare jacket, pump and dry shirt in there, far less than my Blowfish.
The 3litre bladder is made of very tough material (there is a pic on the Source website showing a car parked on a full bladder and it staying intact) which is very shiny and smooth, certainly giving the impression that it will remain bacteria free for a long time. The mouthpiece tube is covered in a weave material which supposedly prevents that warm first mouthful in Summer (it doesn’t). This weave is also said to prevent mould build up in the tube, but the weave is not removable, so you cannot check if there is any mould build up. And finally the mouthpiece, which is a strange design like a cross between a clothes pag and a Lego brick covered in rubber, worked OK for about three rides but now leaks constantly, meaning I now ride with a wet right thigh.
Other features such as the mouthpiece docking station and dayglo waterproof cover were discarded at the onset and I have yet to find a use for the small chest pockets on the straps.
All in all a very complex pack, made from good materials and with a good build quality, but with several shortfalls. The sheer number of small storage pockets is a hindrance rather than a help, that annoying rear back support which digs in for the first hour of the ride and that bloomin’ leaking valve all mean that Source definitely have some work to do before they start making any real inroads into the Camelbak market.
Looks/styling ::8/10
Design features/materials :: 8/10
Performance :: 6/10
Value :: 5/10
UPDATE:
I have discovered that by removing the polypropylene back panel I avoid the digging in my back and also achieve nearer to the claimed carrying capacity, however the pack does now have one further drawback: as the bladder is now resting directly on my back my drink heats up very quickly. Warm water anyone? Yuk.
Fany fact
Pain is temporary, glory is forever, scars are permanent but you can always spend £200 on repairing your broken bike.