cyccommute 

To quote Scrooge: “There's more of gravy than of grave about you…” Or, in other words, I think I your problem is more psychological than physiological. You may have something about your physiology that makes it so that you can’t drink water outside of your local area but if you can drink bottled water without problems, it’s more likely psychological. The dirty secret behind bottled water is that much of it is the same as tap water.

I have drunk lots and lots of tap water in every state in the US, Scotland, parts of Canada, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I drive waiters at restaurants crazy because I don’t drink their snooty bottled waters. But I’ve never found water that is completely undrinkable with the exception of a small area of the Arkansas River Valley in my own state. Tucson’s water is a little funky because of the salts and the fact that the water isn’t 4°C (39°F) out of the tap.

The water that is undrinkable, by the way, is from my own home town. Growing up, the town had very sweet water which was better than anything to the east. But sometime in the 90s they changed the source and the water is beyond bad. It contains high levels of selenium and even radionuclides. It’s taken from surface wells rather than from deeper aquifers. I suggest to anyone riding the TransAmerica Trail to use bottled water from Pueblo to at least the Colorado/Kansas line…and I never suggest using bottled water.

I’m not sure why you are comparing plastic water bottles to the taste of lamp posts. Lamp posts are usually made of metal or even a very different plastic than polyethylene terephthalate which is the plastic that most plastic bottles for beverages are made of. That said, again, a large part of people’s problems with plastics of any kind has more to do with what is going on in your own head rather than something that is happening in the bottle. Add a flavor to the bottle and it masks the taste. I carry 3 bottles on my bike. Two of them have Gatorade in them and one has water. The Gatorade doesn’t taste the best at 90°F but I’m don’t need the taste, I need the salt and sugar. I can gag it down and, often, don’t drink nearly enough and end up cramping at night.


The third bottle, by the way, is only for water and is so marked so that I don’t mix it up with the Gatorade filled bottles. After a couple of weeks of daily use (and not enough washing), the Gatorade bottles can start to grow stuff. I pitch them (or send them home) and get new ones. The water filled bottle is for topping off my Camelbak.

That brings me to my main way of carrying water that is palatable. I pack my Camelbak with as much ice as I can fit in it (about 2/3 of a 7 lb bag) first thing in the morning. If I have access to a ice machine, I use that. Otherwise, I buy a bag of ice (and Gatorade) at a convenience store. The ice fulfills two purposes. First is the obvious one of providing refreshing, cold water. Secondarily…and perhaps more importantly…the ice in the bag serves as a cold sink on a very large portion of my body. Condensed water…which is very cold…drips off the bag onto me as well providing a constant source of cooling of my back, lower back, and upper butt. In Colorado, this cold water drip doesn’t happen as much but in humid areas, it’s almost a stream. My Camelbak was constantly wet in the upper Midwest for 3 straight weeks.

I know all the arguments against Camelbak but refreshing cold water and a cold back make for a much more endurable experience.

Papa Tom

It's not plastic bottled water I'm comparing to lamp posts, it's the water from many taps, which has a distinct metal taste.

Regarding all your other points, I appreciate the time you took and the thought you put into them, but the bottom line is that I don't like the taste of most tap waters and the tap water from many places I visit on a regular basis makes my stomach very unhappy. On top of all that, I don't like to drink water from plastic bottles that have sat on loading docks and in trucks in extreme heat and I don't like using disposable plastic items at all. I just thought (for maybe the three minutes it took me to compose my post) that those tablets people use for camping might be a solution. Apparently, they are not. On to the next silly question...

GhostRider62

Chlorine Dioxide tablets are light and easy to use but they take forever to kill cryptosporidium but A Sawyer Squeeze will filter cysts out quickly. A sawyer won't filter some viruses out. So, both work well together when drinking from cow troughs in the desert southwest.

As for yucky smells, you need a carbon filter. I have no experience with those on backpacking or bikepacking trips. They exist and are easy to Google. There are small RO systems but I can't imagine the value there.

cyccommute 

Sorry. I misread what you said. I read it as using bottled water from a hotel, not filling bottles. That said, letting the water run until it gets cold as others have suggested could go a long way towards removing any metallic taste.

Color me confused If you don’t like tap water…except for the water at home…and you don’t like bottled water, what do you drink?

kaos joe

Ohhhh, man. 3 pages.

OK, we have 4 problems here. We've all faced these before.

Problem #1. Unpleasant taste from the tap. Solution, lemonade powder, iced tea powder, etc. Whatever suits one's taste.

#2. Unpleasant taste from plastic bottles. Solution, stainless steel bottles such as Kleen Kanteen, etc. Work great, except you have to stop and uncap rather than squeeze away. Not a problem.

#3. "Pissy warm" water. Solution, make the stainless bottles the vacuum insulated version. Extremely efficient, will keep things cool for HOURS longer than the plastic "insulated" bottles. Which themselves work fairly well.

#4. Upset stomach. Solution, on the very remote chance that microorganisms in municipal water are causing issues, a filter such as Sawyer. Weigh next to nothing, work well. Never have had any issues filtering surface water in the back country, so should be double insurance on treated municipal water.

That's all I've got.

Papa Tom

LOL. I drink water filtered through a Brita pitcher at home, carry a thermos full of it to work, and fill my water bottles with it when I ride. However, when I do a multi-day trip or one that requires a refill somewhere along the line...

Papa Tom

Thank you. Good reply, and much more useful than people telling me I'm crazy or that hotel water doesn't taste bad.

cyccommute 

The chances of some micro-organism in a municipal water supply in the US is next to zero. Water is tested frequently for organisms and, if as rarely happens the samples show contamination, the public is to be notified at once. That’s the “boil notice” that people sometimes get. But even boil notices are rare. They make news because they are rare.

Flint, MI is an outlier and was due to poor management of the water system. It is true that the problem initially was due to micro-organism contamination. They added more chlorine to the water to kill off the organisms but they didn't’ pay attention to the pH of the water which caused the lead oxide that forms over time to be removed from the pipes. The wrong pH also lead to more corrosion of expose lead in the piping which drove up the lead content in the water.

Doug64

A little off thread, but there are ways to clean the "Gator Aid" bottle while on tour.

We rinse our bottles daily and clean our bottles about once a week or sooner if they start growing things. We mix a small amount of dish detergent with about a half cup of rice, and some water inside the bottle, replace cap, and shake the heck out of the bottle. Rinse the bottle well, and it is ready to go.

One of my front panniers is insulated, and keeps drinks cool all day. My wife and I usually carry 3 bottles. Two bottles are water, and are kept in reserve for cleaning scrapes and wounds, rinsing things out of eyes and drinking. "Doctored" water does not work well for some of these things.

staehpj1 

Seems like you might have lead with that. You might have gotten different answers/suggestions. You might have gotten more filter suggestions for specific options with charcoal elements. I have used filters like the Sawyer Squeeze and it's little brother with good success, but it wouldn't suit your needs without a charcoal element. There are some pump systems with a carbon element, but they tend to be expensive. The Platypus QuickDraw Microfilter System offers the option of an inexpensive carbon element that could be used with any system or with no other filter if the water is safe without filtration.

kaos joe

Not just you. Skip to 1:10.


"and I bid you, adieu"

kaos joe

Even better. Skip to 1:00.

I will say that Marty's analogy beats "licking a lamp post". OK, I'll stop now.

You Tube

GhostRider62

Not where I live. We might get notified a year later. We had lead exceeding limits in the water and we were notified 6-9 months after the fact. The notification was telling us what was being done to minimize lead. Periodically we have had microbial limit excursions, too. No, I do not live in Flint.

axolotl

Hilarious!

Papa Tom

I pretty much peed myself watching this. Man, how I miss that show.

cyccommute 

I said “micro-organisms”. Water is tested at the treatment plant for micro-organisms and reporting requirements are set by Federal law. Lead in water is not likely to come from the treatment plant nor the water source. Lead pipes were used to provide houses with water from the mains. The lead will oxidize and form a layer of insoluble lead oxide or lead carbonate inside the pipe. Phosphate buffer is added to the water at the treatment plant to maintain the protective layer. If the water source has too much chloride in the water, this can cause the protective layer to fail and the lead pipe to start leaching lead into the water.

The problem, however, is that the lead isn’t at the treatment plant. Discovering lead in the tap water of your house depends on testing the water in your house. The measurement of micro-organisms and dissolved metals in the source water is quick and is done often. The measurement of metals at the end of the pipe…i.e. your faucet…isn’t done regularly (or at all) so it takes a while to find problems. Flint, MI was a wake up call and most municipalities are currently putting programs in place to remove lead pipes but there are so many of them, it is going to take a while.

If you want to get deep into the weeds, here’s an article on Flint from the American Chemical Society. It’s very readable and applies to all lead pipes.

GhostRider62

I said, microbial excursions. I am not sure what hair you are splitting. It isn't even a distinction.

You do realize governments do not always follow their own laws.

I was merely pointing out that your absolute statement is not consistent with my experience.

cyccommute 

But you didn’t say microbial excursions. Look at your post again. You said you didn’t get notified until much later and discussed lead issues, not microbes.

Governments usually do follow laws, especially federal ones and especially ones concerning water. If they don’t they are opening themselves up to all kinds of trouble, both civil and criminal.

GhostRider62

This is what I wrote

We are not informed immediately. You can believe me or not. I suppose not.

WRT to lead, this is not just a Flint issue. Mine has lead at the municipal source. Other towns as well.

You must think other people are stupid.

cyccommute 

Yes. I know what you wrote. You just didn’t write it very clearly.

Then you go looking for a lawyer. If they took a year to tell you about microbial contamination, even a bad lawyer should be able to make a case.

No, it’s not just a Flint issue. But it is almost exclusively a “last mile” issue. I’m dubious that any municipality would have lead in their water source without trying to remove it. Again, a bad lawyer would be able to make a very good case if they did.

Nope. Uninformed, yes. Stupid, no.

Papa Tom

>>>Governments usually do follow laws, especially federal ones and especially ones concerning water. If they don’t they are opening themselves up to all kinds of trouble, both civil and criminal.<<<<<

I'd have to question that, too. I work for my local township, in the same building for the past eleven years. Not ONCE has the water been tested in all that time. In fact, when I started seeing brown water coming up in the toilets and water fountain, they replaced a backflow pump that hadn't been serviced in what the plumbers described as "probably thirty years." Even after replacing the pump, they advised me to disconnect the water fountain and NEVER drink any of the water in the building.

Tourist in MSN

A township, does that mean you have a municipal water system or not? A lot of townships have an individual well system for each property. Each of those systems is a private water system. That is not a municipal system.

It sounds to me like you are not on a community water system. If you were you should have access to the latest consumer confidence report.
https://www.epa.gov/ccr/ccr-information-consumers

If you were in my state, and if you had a community water system, it would be designed and implemented under these rules.
https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/cod...ode/nr/800/811

And if you were in my state, this would cover some of the water testing requirements.
https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/cod...de/nr/800/809/

But if each property owner has their own system, those above listed rules do not apply. There is another set of rules for private water systems, but those rules are more likely to be violated. If your building where you work has their own water system, that is a private water system, not a community or municipal system. Even if a community owns the system, it is still considered private if it is only used for a small number of people on that property.

And I did not even get into the plumbing code, that applies to all potable water systems, or it should in your state.

I would expect the New York has comparable code requirements.

All of the previous discussion in this thread on municipal or community water systems was oriented towards those stiffer rules that are designed to protect the public.

kaos joe

Semi-zombie thread, but I just got around to downloading pictures. Here's a Sawyer Squeeze in gravity-fed "stand around with your hands in your pockets" mode. Takes a couple of minutes for a liter, several times faster if you make the effort to squeeze the raw water bag. The Sawyer bags have a rep for springing leaks, which is also my experience, and are best replaced. The Platypus bags have been to hell and back and are good after 20+ years.
Now, I've never tried it, but the system should be equal to the rigors of hotel room use.

Tourist in MSN

I leave in a couple days for a backpacking trip (yes, backpacking, not bikepacking), bringing my Sawyer for the first time. Tested it a couple days ago in the sink, did not want to flow so I did a robust backflush and it now provides good flow. I tested it in the sink when I bought it almost two years ago, so it had some water in it in storage over almost two years.

The issue the OP had was flavor, not filterable microbes or particulates. Thus a filter would not work on that.

I will be using Evernew brand bladders.

kaos joe

One of my buds has Evernew bags. They have a good rep and he uses them without ever having a leak develop. Have a great trip!