After a day spent hiking, biking, climbing or otherwise exerting yourself outdoors, a shower sure feels nice. Climbing into your car and driving home all sweaty in order to take said shower, however, can be quite a drag. That's why Colorado native Joel Cotton created the Road Shower. It's a pressurized water tank that mounts on your roof rack, allowing you to grab a quick shower beside your car – just look out for Peeping Toms.
The tank is made from powder-coated aluminum, holds 5 gallons/19 liters of water (which Cotton says should be good for two to three showers), and can be mounted on Yakima, Thule and "most other" rack systems. While it sits up in the sunlight as you drive, its black paint job helps heat up the water contained within. Should that water get too hot, however, its radiator-style fill cap contains a release valve that allows steam to escape.
To use it, users first pressurize the tank by hooking a CO2 canister or a bike pump up to its air input valve. They they take the hose down from its clamps, and set the nozzle to one of its seven settings – these include shower, jet and mist. From there, they just take a shower. Presumably they start by placing an experimental fingertip in front of the nozzle, to check that the water isn't too hot or too cold.
Because both the food-grade hose and the inside of the tank are non-toxic, Cotton points out that it could additionally be used for hauling drinking water. It could also be used for things like spraying the mud off gear before putting it back in the car, or hosing off dirty dishes when camping.
Lots of people already use solar bag showers for the same purpose, although Joel states that those can be easily punctured, need to be hung up, don't have particularly high pressure, and can't be heated while you're in transit.
He has reportedly already sold 100 of his Road Showers, but has now turned to Kickstarter in order to raise funds for going into commercial-scale production. A pledge of US$210 will get you one, when and if the funding goal is met. If not, you can still buy one for $299.95 from his existing website.
The device can be seen in use in the pitch video below.
Sources: Road Shower, Kickstarter
