Stove and fuel

The planner writes this from the ride you describe, so there is no version of it that is true for everybody. Here it is worked against one ride, named below, with a single answer changed at a time to show what moves.

2 nights · wild camping · cold but not freezing (8 °C) · gravel and tracks · towns daily

You said you want to cook. Fuel is the part people underestimate — carry for the gap between shops, not for the night.

On that ride the planner marks it optional.

The same requirement, reasoned again from a different answer. One answer moves at a time, so what each one adds is attributable to it and to nothing else.

• Night low · Below freezing

  Below freezing is the answer that decides this one. Standard butane stops vaporising around freezing, so it wants an isobutane/propane mix — and the canister sleeps in the bag with you, not on the bike. Alcohol slows right down in the cold, and wood is a plan that fails in the wet.

• Resupply · Rarely, or not at all

  You said remote, so resupply is not a plan you can rely on. Carry the fuel for the whole stretch.

The ride above

fuel for 1 day of cooking

Night low · Below freezing

fuel for 1 day of cooking · a winter fuel mix, not standard butane

Resupply · Every couple of days

fuel for 2 days of cooking

Resupply · Rarely, or not at all

fuel for 3 days of cooking

One object doing one job, so this is a choice between them rather than a shopping list. Every one carries what it costs you as well as what it gets you.

• Gas canister

  Lights instantly, simmers, and is the one that still works in the cold.

  but Canisters are hard to find in some countries and you cannot see what is left.

  Night low · Below freezing

  but Canisters are hard to find in some countries, you cannot see what is left, and below freezing it has to be an isobutane/propane mix — plain butane will not vaporise.

  A plain web search. We earn nothing from it.

  Find one ↗

• Alcohol burner

  Nothing to break, and fuel is sold in hardware shops everywhere.

  but Slow, and hopeless in wind without a shield.

  A plain web search. We earn nothing from it.

  Find one ↗

• Wood burner

  No fuel to carry at all.

  but Banned or impossible wherever it is dry enough to be a fire risk or wet enough not to light. Blackens everything.

  A plain web search. We earn nothing from it.

  Find one ↗

We hold measured dimensions for bags and for nothing else, so this hands the requirement to a search rather than picking something for you. Nothing on this page has a price, a weight or a maker attached to it, because none of those were measured.

That depends on the ride, and this page does not know it. The interview does, and it is the only thing here that can answer the question — no account, and every line it gives you names the answer that produced it.

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