Gel-Bot - My Latest Trail Running Product Obsession

Have you guys seen the Gel-Bot? It's a water bottle that also holds a couple of gels in an internal mini-chamber. Open the valve and squeeze to get water, close the valve and squeeze to get gel. Frickin' genius if you ask me.


Apparently the Gel-Bot has been on the market for a few years now. created by the folks at Hydrapak. I'm seriously late to the game here, but have really been enjoying the simplicity of this invention over the last few weeks. It's fascinating to me how easy access to gels and water gives you a variety of ways to gulp it down - you can sip the gel and chase it with water for a continuous stream of energy, go for a big slug every 10 minutes (my usual), or match the gel packet equivalent of a super-big pull every 20-30 minutes. Best of all, you don't have to commit to any one of these delivery methods - just try them all out!


Extra bonus points for (a) not having to carry gels in your pocket, (b) no sticky gel packets to deal with, and (c) simple dissassembly for easy cleaning. I do miss out on having lots of gel flavors, but I think it's worth the trade off.

I have my Gel Bot rigged in an Ultimate Direction FastDraw bottle holder with a Salt Stick capsule dispenser to hold my S-Caps, so it's got everything I need (learned that trick from Will Gotthardt). Since the pocket of the FastDraw doesn't have to be jammed with gels, I can easily carry another snack, some toilet paper, ginger (or other semi-emergency items), and a little bit o' sunscreen. This makes the exchange with your crew easy too, since you can hand one bottle off and have them give you a second that is fully loaded. You get the NASCAR pit stop, and the crew can look at your old bottle to see how well you are doing (ginger and TP are gone...uh, oh!).


Ah, the ever-evolving trail running toys. Got other suggestions? Let me know! And thanks to Hydrapak for getting a great product to market.

- SD

Source: http://runtrails.blogspot.com/2011/06/gel-bot-my-latest-trail-running-product.html

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