Philosophy + About Us

IT DIDN'T EXIST, SO WE BUILT IT.

Comfort, Stability, Access, Durability.

Nobody was making mountain bike hydration packs that really nailed all four of those categories, so we decided to do it ourselves.

Arctos Packs is guided by these core priorities:

  1. COMFORT. A pack must be comfortable to wear for hours while carrying your water/gear/food. This is why waist-based carry is always our starting point for a pack. Your upper back and shoulders, an area that needs to move (and that contains your aerobic engine!), should be as free as possible from weight, heat, and restriction.
  2. STABILITY. Mountain bike packs shouldn't flop, rotate, or shift while riding. This can happen two ways: movement of the pack on the body, or movement of your water/gear/food within the pack. Most manufacturers try to deal with these issues separately with cinches or elastic on the waist/shoulder straps and separate cinches on the pack body. Since this is such an important basic function, we accomplish both types of cinching with the front waist straps so your pack doesn't move on your body and your pack's contents don't move within the pack.
  3. ACCESS. Items that need to be used during a ride should be as accessible as possible. Many manufacturers' wing pocket designs seems like an afterthought (too small for important items, not secure enough, not one-hand operable). Some competitor packs don't even have wing pockets. Our wing pockets are built as large as possible to carry most items you could need while riding: the largest phones, multiple food items, ear buds, bell, etc. Our zipper pulls are easy to find with gloves on and are easy to operate with one hand.
  4. DURABILITY. Dirt, sun, sweat, crashes, branches. For a mountain biking pack to last a long time, it needs to deal with those 5 things well for years. Where possible, we avoid elastics (which degrade in the sun), mesh (which catches and rips), and small cheap no-name zippers (which sweat and dirt cause to separate and fail). Our packs are designed to endure years of real-world use on a mountain bike.

Ken's Journey

In the beginning…

I (Ken, owner/founder) started mountain biking in 2010, wearing a traditional hydration backpack like everyone else was.  I loved long rides, but that pack hurt my back on anything beyond a short “lunch lap”.  The large volume of water required for multi-hour rides combined with tools, food, and various other items like clothing, a folding saw for trail work, canned beverages, etc. made my upper back and shoulders hurt progressively worse over the course of a ride.  Traditional backpacks would also hit me in the back of the helmet on steep technical trails, snag low-hanging branches on narrow brushy trails, leave me with a hot and sweaty back, and made frequently-accessed items (bars, phone, etc) hard to access.

A better option?

Fast forward a few years and hip packs hit the scene.  Like many others, I tried them out and found that although they were more comfortable, they came with their own compromises: instability and reduced capacity. A full hip pack with water for a multi-hour ride would flop and shift around when I was riding technical, rocky trails in my hometown of San Luis Obispo. It also didn’t have enough storage for things like a warm layer of clothing, bike lights, or other odds and ends (a beer, a folding saw, etc.), let alone much water.

Even worse, every one of these packs – traditional backpacks and hip packs alike – needed at least one trip to the warranty department of their manufacturers.

A brand is born

I believed it was possible to have one pack that’s comfortable on short and long rides, carries enough water and gear for lunch laps and epics alike, doesn’t compromise on technical descents, makes your gear quickly accessible, and can endure years of dirt, sun, sweat, and crashes without needing to be boxed up and sent back to its manufacturer for repair. 

Nobody was making a pack like that, so I set out to create it myself.

In 2024, after more than a year of dreaming, designing, and testing, our flagship mountain biking pack was born: the Arctos Epic 14.4. The Epic 10.3 and Swift 6.2 followed shortly after, creating options in our lineup for everything from quick rides to all-day epics.

EYES ON THE NEXT RIDGE

You can count on us to continually drive to make the most comfortable, stable, accessible, durable mountain biking packs out there.

You can also count on us to respond to your emails quicker than most companies will, and to do whatever we can to keep you stoked on your purchase.

Thanks for pedaling with us! -Ken

SHOP OUR PACKS

People and Planet (before Profits)

  • Our existence gives us the opportunity to leave this planet, and the lives of those we come in contact with, better off. Arctos Packs donates 1% of profits to World Bicycle Relief, an organization dedicated to empowering individuals to access education, healthcare, and economic opportunities through life-changing bicycles.

    LEARN MORE 

  • We believe in the power of community, and acknowledge that outdoor recreation isn’t accessible for all. Arctos Packs donates 1% of profits to the Grow Cycling Foundation to support its efforts to promote education, access, and opportunities that increase diversity and inclusion in cycling.

    LEARN MORE