The Sawyer Water Filter differed from its competitors in one crucial way.  It employs gravity to perform the filtration instead of manual labor.  This appealed to us because the last thing you want to do when you’re taking a break from hours of biking is do an arm workout.

The system depends on two bladders, some tubes and a filter.  One bladder is designated for dirty water and the other for clean.  After collecting some water in the dirty bladder from your source it is hung two or three feet above the clean bladder.  The two are connected via tubes with a filter in-between.  About fifteen minutes later you have 2 litres of pure water.  The filter can be cleaned easily be connecting it to a faucet with clean water or otherwise forcing clean water through the filter backwards.  Ideally the filter is good for millions of gallons of water.

Sawyer Water Filter

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Details

Price: $99

Capacity:

Useful life of filter: Unlimited

Update 8/16/10:

Over the past few days we have been having trouble with the snaps which connect the bladders to tubes.  They have been stiff and yesterday we were unable to make a perfect seal with one.  The rubber ring has been stretched.  It is only happening on the dirty water side so it is possible there is some sort of buildup in the connectors which has worn it.  We are going to spend a week trouble-shooting it before determining if replacement necessary.

Update 9/3/10:

In Seattle we were able to drop by and pick up some replacement rubber o-rings.  We haven’t been tested them out yet because there is so much potable water here in the US so be on the lookout for further information.