Inspiration from perspiration

For John Hobbs, the light went on while he was sweating up a storm during his daily seven-mile run on Marco Island.

Photo by QUENTIN ROUX, Marco Eagle

Marco Island runner Kim Homuth samples the Athletes' Oasis bottles invented by Islander John Hobbs.

Instead of having to make water stops wherever he could, or tote along a bouncy bottle of fluid, he thought, why not devise a comfortable liquid-carrying system that would be ergonomic and distribute the weight evenly on each hand during a run?

With the idea swimming in his head, Hobbs went home, showered and sat down to ponder his brain wave.

That was in 1996.

Athletes' Oasis, Hobbs' brand of dual fluid bottles, just hit the market. The bottles are aimed at walkers, skiers, hikers, runners, skateboarders and other aerobic exercisers.

It was a long, painstaking and sometimes frustrating trip, but Hobbs overcame design glitches, patenting red tape and lack of financial backing. Now he's confronting his final hurdle — persuading his target market to buy the bottles.

At $29.95 a set, the bottles come in various hand sizes, colors and capacities.

A simple trigger mechanism enables the holder to drink while on the move, without having to remove a cap.

Instead, the trigger opens and closes a valve below the mouthpiece with a flick of the thumb.

By drinking alternately from bottles, Hobbs said, users can maintain equal weights.

The bottles merely have to be balanced, not grasped. So users can run with open hands or closed fists — depending on what they find more comfortable.

Photo by QUENTIN ROUX, Marco Eagle

The bottles are designed to fit over the knuckles for better comfort during a run.

As the product evolved from a rudimentary, laboratorylike vessel with a jerky mechanism to the refined, all-plastic bottle, Hobbs saw other possibilities.

He plans to develop fittings to add weights to the bottles for more intense muscle training, flashlight and strobe accessories for safety during evening runs, an alarm and a digital clock.

Hobbs also visualizes slots for attaching walking poles. Eventually he would like to add a small device that measures humidity and heat, and beeps when users should drink more fluid.

In the early days, Hobbs spent many hours in the Marco Island Branch Library, poring over literature on the ins and outs of securing and protecting patents.

A provisional patent gave him a year's grace, a "public disclosure" another year. The final patent is good for 17 years.

"I did crude prototypes and mock-ups," Hobbs said.

At the time, money for research and development was tight, and Hobbs eked out what he could to develop his idea.

He eventually found backing and linked with R&D Prototype Tooling Services, a Texas company whose owner, Rick Patino, had connections in China for cost-effective production of the bottles.

Submitted photo

Inventor John Hobbs promotes his product at a trade show in Orlando in late January.

"The molds are of hardened steel and are good for about a million shots," Hobbs said.

"The cost of the molds (for 12-and 16-ounce bottles) was less than $60,000 in China, whereas here just one mold was going to cost me $110,000 to $120,000."

Armed with his product, Hobbs attended a sporting-goods trade show in Orlando in late January. He admits that he blew his first marketing attempt.

"It was a disaster," Hobbs said. "I didn't have the goods well-packaged, and had no display racks. I was simply unprepared."

He hopes that will change when he touts his product Feb. 25 and 26 at the Gasparilla Distance Classic in Tampa.

He also plans to air ads on a local TV channel and to tout his Web site, www.athletesoasis.com.

He's due to appear on the QVC channel and may be booked on NBC's Today. A Today freelancer who covers health has shown interest in Athletes' Oasis.

Hobbs said his strategy is to plow half of all earnings into marketing and nearly 10 percent into product development.

"Then, hopefully one day I'll get a paycheck," he said.

If he's successful, he and his girlfriend, Kathy Bing, will fulfill their ultimate dream of buying a ranch and traveling the country in an RV.

"I just need to sell to 0.01 percent of my target market, and that'll do it," Hobbs said.