With a shop most days you carry one day of food, not more
Take a two-night trip. If there's a shop most days, the answer is one day of food carried. Stretch the resupply gap to every couple of days and that becomes two days carried. Drop to rarely or not at all and it's three. The frequency of resupply is what sets the number — not how far you're riding.
Resupply frequency, against what you carry
| How often you pass a shop | Days of food carried |
|---|---|
| Every day | 1 |
| Every couple of days | 2 |
| Rarely, or not at all | 3 |
Each step down in resupply reliability adds exactly one day of carried food. That is the one input worth changing here.
Trip length does not move it at all
| Nights out | Days of food carried |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |
| 3 | 1 |
| 7 | 1 |
| 14 | 1 |
The count stays at one day carried across all of them, because the shop resets you daily regardless of how many nights you have booked. Once resupply is frequent enough, duration drops out of the calculation entirely — the number you carry is set by the gap between shops, not by the size of the trip wrapped around those gaps.
What this cannot tell you
Whether the shop will be open, stocked, or exist on the day you arrive. This is a count of days between resupply points as you have described them, not a judgement on how reliable that resupply actually is. A closed shop on a Sunday turns a one-day carry into something else entirely, and that risk sits outside this figure.
Every claim above, and how it is known
- DERIVEDWith resupply "every day" and a 2 night trip, the food carried is 1 day.
- DERIVEDWith resupply "every couple of days" and a 2 night trip, the food carried is 2 days.
- DERIVEDWith resupply "rarely, or not at all" and a 2 night trip, the food carried is 3 days.
- DERIVEDWith resupply "every day", a 1 night trip requires 1 day of food carried.
- DERIVEDWith resupply "every day", a 3 night trip requires 1 day of food carried.
- DERIVEDWith resupply "every day", a 7 night trip requires 1 day of food carried.
- DERIVEDWith resupply "every day", a 14 night trip requires 1 day of food carried.
Every figure here came out of the same rules that answer the interview, so it moves when they do. Yours differ wherever your answers differ.