Touring Equipment

I cba to read through several threads to learn about alcohol stoves. What are my options and what are the pros and cons?

Just my thoughts on alcohol stoves.
Pro's
Light weight, cheap, fairly easy to find fuel (meths from B&Q, hardware shops, painting decorating shops, maybe even some larger super markets) no moving parts, nothing to go wrong.

Con's
Slow cook times (may or may not be an issue) liquid fuel so if burner is not sealable (like the trianga units) then you have to decant fuel back to storage bottle.

If you go for one, practice cooking at home, see how much fuel you use for boiling water and some basic cooking, will give you an idea on how much fuel to carry.

I use gas :) funniest thing i saw with liquid fuel was the classic messy filling and trail of fuel which ignited. Funniest thing i saw with solid fuel was someone cutting a square out of the tent groundsheet to cook inside (very windy/wet night on dartmoor)

Pro's and Con's to each system,(gas/meths/multifuel/solid/wood) you have to decide what works for you and where you are going to be. Example outside the UK/EU gas can be hard to to get so meths/multifuel are better.

Thanks. I use gas at the moment in EU and it serves me well, but I might do some travel around the US next year so just checking up on how to prepare. So the trangria stoves are something I should look for?

Propane/butane/isobutane is easily available on the coasts of Usonia, it's the middle where things can get a bit more dicey. What you call cooking meths can be purchased in big box hardware places all over this continent.

Does anyone have experience finding/not finding screw type gas canisters in Japan?

Trianga stoves have a screw on top to seal them, the home made burner units you either burn dry or decant unused fuel back into the storage bottle.
You can get clone/copies of the Trianga burners which are a bit cheaper, even though genuine units are hardly costly.

The Americans have lots of out-doorsy shooting/fishing/camping stores so you should be good with gas over there (except for internal flights when you will have to ditch fuel/gas cans)
For better info look to american based cycle forums, and look into re-supply options on your intended route. Walmarts are pretty handy :)
Esbit solid fuel cookers might be worth checking out too, use a 4gram tablet to get going and stoke with twigs to complete cooking, solid fuel tablets are easy to get as well and transport friendly (double check that yourself before flying with them)
mtbr has a good bikepacking subforum, and bikepacking.net is mostly USA based so good info on there.
Depends on how light you want to go, if you can find 3 or 4 small stones to sit a Ti-pot on then you just need to carry solid fuel tablets, the Esbit Ti burner itself is silly lightweight though, and the americans love solid fuel tablets as they have a long shelf life.
Go to youtube and search for esbit cookers.

I started on hexi cookers, then alcohol jelly which got hard to find (pre-internet days) been on gas for years as cooker units got lighter and screw on gas cans became available, nice and easy to use, clean burn and fast boil times. Starting to sway back towards solid fuels again partly down to chatting with yanks and thinking the Marathon Des Sables would be fun :)

Interesting. I want to travel as light as possible, but not a fan of dry fuels. Alcohol should do the job just fine and as I'll be hiking (yeah I know, no bike) with access to shops every 4/5 days or so I should be fine with very little fuel on me. Gas would be fine, but it's just a bit too bulky and heavy.

Moreso reckon hobo stoves ftw, another camp (neither wild nor bike) with one this week. Made a couple spare, quite enjoy the process now as involves drinking contents first.

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More of a hiker myself than bike packer, but you can learn loads from looking around and it's just the way you carry things (on back or on a bike) going light is win/win.
For silly lightweight the Marathon Des Sables is some good reading and they have a ban on gas, mostly for transport and re-supply in the desert heat.

I belive the americans refer to what we call meths(or similar) as de-natured alcohol, asking for "meths" stateside they might assume crystalmeths and call the police....... :) breaking bad...

There seems to be a lot of discussion online about what is what when it comes to alcohol varieties.
Up here in Canader it's called Methyl Hydrate.

Useful Meths info from bearbones

http://bearbonesbikepacking.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/bear-bones-meths-trouble-shooting-guide.html?m=1

Hey y'all,

I've just had some rather strange sizing advice from Spa over the phone regarding their steel tourer:

spacycles.co.uk/products.php?­plid=m2b0s143p2984

I would normally have a 56cm top tube on my bikes, thus meaning I'd be looking at the 51cm sizing (their sizing with the sloping top tube), however spa suggested I'd need at least the 54 or 57 sized bikes, giving me a 58 or 60cm VTT.

Am I just being stupid or do spa have strange sizing ideas?

For reference, I'm 179cm and have a 56cm supersix and genesis equilibrium which are both a great fit. I'd imagine for touring, if anything, I'd want to have a similar or shorter VTT not longer?!

Hello,

Off on a trip to Snowdon this week (from Portsmouth) to ride there, up the mountain then back down.

Question, tyres. I've got the Surly Knards for the mountain, wondering whether its better to a) ride the whole 300 miles there on the road on the knards, saving the weight of the tyres (around a kg), or b) stick on some slicker tyres and carry the knards (adding the extra kg). Already fairly loaded with bags, anything cages etc so space shouldn't be an issue. I'm thinking as the bikes carrying the luggage, will it really make much difference the tyre tread as will be going at slower speeds?

thoughts?

I'd do the whole trip on Knards or get some semislick/mixed terrain tyres if you feel spendy.

300 miles on the road on a Mountain/Fat Bike? Or riding up Snowdon on a cyclocross bike? Neither sounds ideal.

Also be aware that there is a lot of bike pushing/carrying on the way up, and depending on your bike and riding skills, also quite a lot on the way down, so a fully loaded bike might not be great.

Also, if you're going next week, please be aware of this: http://www.cyclingnorthwales.co.uk/pages/snowdn_volunt.htm

Hey, 300 miles on the road there, then up and down mountain. On a Surly Straggler. (No luggage on the mountain!). Camping on the way. Something a bit different!

Yep aware on the 10am thing, will be a cracking place to watch the sunrise! fully expecting a fair amount of pushing on the way up! Been mountain biking all over for 20 years so should be OK coming down fingers crossed!

Hexi stoves - thoughts? I have a load of old old hexi blocks at home, they won't have gone off or anything? I remember when I was in cadets there was a ban on hexamine for some reason?

Have they been stored dry?
Probably best not to cook inside the tent (being from NA, I would never do this in the first place, but apparently it's ok in the UK).

Hmm probably not to be honest, in a garage for ~25 years would be my best guess.

And yeah I'd never cook in a tent.

If you already have the stove, might as well invest in a few new tablets.

.

did anyone try the Gorillas?

I would be super tempted to post the knards to a hostel or mountaineering shop near to snowdon. That way you can enjoy the cycle there, and the cycle up.

Just catching up with this thread after a few weeks. What is wrong with the Salsa Cages? Did they get re-called? I was going to get those damn.

I want to be able to easily take them off!. My CC only has a single mounting point on the front. So I was going to try and cable tie the other two mount points. The gorrilla do seem better for what I want. However as you can see in the picture Ed posted, the metal bolts or screw are going into plastic. So over time that plastic is going to wear away, no?

Who has got either of them already - opinions please?

Also since we are talking about the Trangia's - my Trangia mini has been awesome only used it a few times last year, and handful this year - so impressed. But I wanted an extra pot/pan so I went for this set from YellowStone The small pan is the same size as the standard Trangia mini. So if I want to I can take the large one and the mini and all the bits fit nicely. The pan handle from Yellowstone is better than the Trangia one. The set is only £8! The quality is not as high as the Trangia but if all you want to do is boil some water for a couple of cups of coffee for the thermos then it works great.

It won't wear away if it's installed correctly, otherwise normal plastic water bottle cages wouldn't be popular.