Do any of you take a water filter or purifier when touring? I only plan to tour in the states. And what should I look for when getting one.

I used one for a while on the Trans America. I only used it a couple times and sent it home. I don't think I would buy one for bike touring in the US unless maybe you will be touring off road. Backpacking or other back country camping is another matter.

I do like the one I have for backpacking and canoe camping. It is an MSR Sweetwater.

Here's an interesting one to look at. Haven't used it but I heard they're sending some to Philippines due to extreme flooding from past typhoon.
https://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mi...er_filter.html

Filters are useful when long distance hiking, when you may not see a road or settlement for many days at a time. Since cycle tourists tend to stay near roads, they tend to see settlements much more often, so sources of clean water are quite common. There really are not that many places in North America where you can bike along a road without running into a city, town, village or hamlet at least every couple of days or so.

I took my filter (MSR, unsure of model) on my first tour last month, and didn't touch it except to get at stuff under it. As a canoeist and backpacker, it just seemed like something I would need. If you are in most of eastern USA doing road touring, I see little reason to bring a filter. If you are touring parts of the west, that is a different story; you can go without seeing a town for 50-100 miles. I personally would want a filter if I wouldn't be guaranteed to fill my bottles on a daily basis. Just my thoughts.

Used an MSR HyperFlow filter on a recent backpacking trip. It worked very well and was the sole source of drinking and cooking water for our group of 4 over 5 days. But I wouldn't consider taking a filter on a road bike touring trip in the US. Yes there are places in the west where towns are far apart, but in many of those places it may also be a long way before you find any water to filter.

Have to go with the majority here and say that for a US trip you almost certainly don't need one, unless you are planning to leave your bike somewhere and go backcountry camping for a few days.

Here's the review on the water filter we carried around the world, although even on that extended journey we rarely used it:

https://travellingtwo.com/resources/waterfilters

Plan well and you won't need to find water to filter. I don't occasionally, but have always managed, even in the west. Been offered water by passing motorist, bummed off RVers, and used faucets at private homes. Good planning is far better, and as noted by prathmann, finding water to filter can be nearly impossible.

Even in populated areas of the US, best to keep 3 liters topped off, especially if you're wild camping. Out west, 5 liters minimum, especially in the summer. 5 plus a gallon in some really isolated stretches. I hate having worry about water mess up the joy of carefree pedaling.

I bring mine on backcountry trips and touring the western states. use it a fair bit too.

just sayin'....

but if i can top off in a town in the afternoon, yippie!

I agree. I have an old Platypus Sweetwater filter, the same filter now owned and sold by MSR. It works pretty good. Filters let you pump out of very shallow pools without stirring up sediment, where dipping with a water bottle or bladder may be difficult or impossible.

When I need to save weight (BP/hiking) and I know the area and the availability/quality of it's water sources, I go with chemical purification tablets - either Potable Aqua (iodine), available at most Wal-marts, or Mcnett Aquamira (ClO2). Aquamira is more effective at killing microorganisms than iodine, but it's hard to find, costs 4X as much and has a shorter shelf life. Tastes a bit like swimming pool water too, I prefer the taste of iodine.

I have occasionally got a little sick (diarrhea, nausea, fever) from "bad" water using both filtration and chemical (and even combined) treatments. Neither is 100% effective in some places. The only method that has never let me down is 5" of rolling boil. Also, drinking ground water in an area where livestock graze is evidently a bad idea, avoid if at all possible.

Oops. I just read Avatarworf's link (same filter) - my experience is the same. And as others have pointed out, you can just carry a helluva lot of water if you anticipate no supply.

I'm for iodine, or one of the other chemical water purifiers. You are not going to need to filter a lot of water, and the weight of the pump (and the pumping) is just a nuisance. However, a bottle of iodine tablets weighs almost nothing, so if you want to be paranoid.

Seeker, let me introduce me to your new friend, able to survive, and thrive in a rolling boil. Don't think it'll make you sick though.

I used a katadyn pocket filter on my year tour. Came in very handy, I filtered likely hundreds of liters of water.

For a US tour, I likely would not bring that filter (it's pretty heavy). I would probably check out one of the newer MSR filters, and bring one of them. Depends on how/if you like to camp though too.

At least in the pacific northwest there's so much good backroads and USFS land and camping at undeveloped sites or abandonded campgrounds (woot!!!!) with river water or streams coming down from the forests, and not a tap for miles around. last time you passed a tap was yesterday afternoon.


as an alternate to iodine or a filter, I field tested a MSR/MIOX portable sterilizer when it was still a DARPA project, it was pretty cool. water tasted great.

My 14 oz MSR water purifier (filter plus chlorox) weighs less than a liter of water and has saved my bacon a couple of times even while touring in the US and Canada. Of course, better planning my needs for water would have prevented these problems in the first place.

Even if you pull fom a tap, there is no assurance that the water you drink will not be contaminated. It is not crazy to filter any water than doesn't come from a bottle or a municipal water supply. In some places, I'd filter the water even then. Twice this year I found out too late that I had drunk from a tap connected to a contaminated well. Fortunately I didn't get sick. Some day they'll invent a filter that will work even though it stays in the pannier!

+1 for Katadyn Pocket filter, definitely preferable to chemical or UV treatments I reckon. Tablets take a fair while to effectively treat water - with the filter you just dip it in the dirty water and pump into a bottle, job done.

Can't imagine you'd need one in the States, unless you're waaaaaay out in the sticks, in pretty flat land.

Iodine tabs or the drop stuff as a just in case. It`s cheap, easy, compact and light. In fact, if you`re only planning to use it "just in case", you only need to pack a half dozen or so of the green tablets (I toss the "bottle #2" as soon as I buy them anyway), not the whole bottle.

No - totally unnessesary. For this amount of money you can buy a lot of water. On the bike it only makes sence:
- very very remote area (Sahara for instance)
- save money (if you tour longer than 1 year)

If you ride on roads where is nothing. Stop a car (lay your bike on shoulder) and ask for water.

Thomas

If it came down to it, I wouldn`t hesitate to knock on a door or stop a passing vehicle for water (or for anything else), but I don`t want to plan for that. Besides my dislike for having to ask or beg favors, in my opinion it`s irresponsible to use those options as a "Plan A". Anybody is welcome to disagree, though.

A few comments in this thread note that there are not many stretches where you can`t get potable water for days at a time. That`s true, but if plumbing or bottled water aren`t available even for the better part of one day, and there`s a known river or lake, etc on that part of the route, I`d rather use treated water than carry it. Personally, I don`t mind iodine taste.

I am not sure what it is like for a more southern crossing, but on the Trans America I think the longest stretch between water was about 80 miles. I would think that on most US routes water is available at least daily.

Places where it is a long way between water stops I plan where I stay based on those stops. If at all possible, I plan a longer day to get from water stop to water stop rather than overnight without having water stocked up. Some times that means a short day before or after to make the distances work out. My point is that on most trips in the US you only need enough water to get you to your destination for the day with a little extra for safety.

anyone touring the western states and moseying around anywhere in the great basin should simply pick up a 10 liter MSR dromedary bag and stuff it in the bottom of a pannier.

you may use it a lot more than you think! you can thank me later.

Ditch the filter, especially if you carry a light weight stove. If you need to get water from a wild source, boil it. That treatment is the most effective, anyway. I have done this, and it works fine. Adequate treatment is achieved by bringing water to a rolling boil and then using.

It is important to be sure you have the ability to carry large amounts of water when traversing arid/hot stretches. I have carried up to eight liters.

i don't waste fuel to sterilize water, the needs for a bicyclist make that both time and fuel cost prohibitive. of course you can always do that with the kettle water.

I took my MSR Miniworks pump filter on my around Lake Ontario tour this summer. I never used it.