2013 Camelbak! World Scoop

Camelbak has a ton of new stuff for 2013 – virtually the entire range is being rejigged for the next season. We were lucky to be shown a few sneaky previews. Chipps’ll be off to see the whole range in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime here’s a taster.

Camelbak has a new upmarket urban range coming out. Starting with two packs, it’s aiming at the commuter market and showing two bags made from waxed cotton with leather patches and pulls. The bags are designed for laptops and tablets and have a ton of organiser pockets. They don’t come with bladders and to be fair, there aren’t too many commuters who ride with one, but you can still add one later if you feel like it. They also come with rain covers to keep them fully watertight.

Bigger bag is modelled on a military bag Camelbak makes.

The smaller rucksack still has a good amount of room for clothes and shopping.

Hi viz laptop sleeve

The new MULE XV (cross flow) is ever so slightly bigger, comes in this nice bright ‘poppy’ colour and has a dual density foam back for comfort and ventilation. It also has a clever helmet attachment.

Some helmet holders won’t work with non-vented helmets, or something like this POC, but the Camelbak solution is to grip the helmet straps instead of the vents.

And finally, there’ll be a new bag coming out called the Volt, which is a larger lumbar pack. The Charge LR is a great bag for carrying the water low down on your hips, but it was hard to make that long, thin reservoir much bigger and still sit in the bag, so the new Volt will have a 3Litre bladder that is designed to sit low down around your hips. It’s basically the same shape as the ghouls from PacMan, with baffles to stop it filling out too much. Hopefully we’ll get to see the full bag in a week or so at PressCamp.