Salamandrine 

If you don't want or need to cook, that's fine, but a modern canister backpacking cookset only weighs a few ounces and packs very small. Sure, riding past some sort of gas station or market even in the boonies is not unusual, but do you really want to camp next to it so you can have breakfast? For that matter do you want to eat gas station food for breakfast at all? Also, it's nice to be able to boil water if you have to drink from a lake or something.

DropBarFan

I guess so. A minimalist sleeping-bag based system will always be most efficient, tent w/hammock idea more for folks willing to carry extra tent weight anyway.

djb

One other aspect of making your own meals (other than the most important for me, having a good breakfast of oatmeal and a hot drink, not having to ride somewhere to eat) is simply cost.
Breakfasts are going to be cheap, and depending on what sort of things you do for a supper, you generally get more bang for your buck doing pasta meals or whatever. Eating in restaurants will cost X no matter what, so in my case, keeping the daily expenses down by camping and doing my own food was a real factor in when I did month long trips and didnt have a lot to spend. The plane ticket was the biggest expense, but by keeping eating expenses down (but still eating well) it made a significant difference to how much I spent on a trip.
Plus, I grew up camping so it never was a hardship eating stuff out of a pot or whatever.
Yes it weighs a given amount to carry cooking stuff, but then you do also have the freedom of that, and as I mentioned, for me a bike trip combined with camping is part of the deal, and enjoyment. Yes, I would eat at restaurants sometimes, but its certainly not a hardship for me doing the pasta thing often, and the mentioned oatmeal breakfast etc.

Salamandrine 

Yeah, don't forget cost... Also, don't forget the calories needed. A microwave burrito is not much fuel for conquering mountain passes.

Not sure when if ever I'll have time for another multi week tour, but when I did tour, we ate oatmeal in the morning, pasta at night, and stopped for a burger/sandwich or whatever presented itself for lunch. Worked pretty well for 19 year old appetites.

Buffalo Buff

I agree, I'd go with a freshly cooked ham and cheese omelet and some OJ Even when I was out in a fairly rural area of WV or VA finding something like that was cake.

It's not as difficult as that. I'll stock up when I'm ready to turn in, going and grabbing a sub, bolthouse farm smoothie, some granola, milk, bananas, meat & tortillas, peanut butter etc. Go and smash some dinner and eat the leftovers when I wake up. Works well for me. Takes less time than cooking, which matters more to me than $$.


I'd rather bring a Sawyer mini filter if securing water is any concern.

mdilthey

Wow, I agree with all of this completely.

staehpj1

Sorry, I misread your intent.

staehpj1

I can see that being the case, there but it definitely isn't as much so in a lot of the US.

Yes true. In the most rural parts of Virginia and West Virginia I still expect to see a store or restaurant at least once a day and probably a few times.

There are places in the US where you would probably need to once in a while, if you didn't cook. It is very different in the regard in some of the more remote parts of the west as compared to most of the east (Northwest Maine might be an exception since you can probably drive a car all day without passing a town there).

For what it is worth I like to buy breakfast and lunch in a diner or other restaurant a lot of the time. It is a nice chance to rub elbows with the local folks and to sample the local foods. I also eat cold food from my pannier some of the time. I most often only cook once per day, but still find it worth packing at least minimal cooking gear.

antokelly

hanks NUN great set up for sure.

fietsbob

Another Long Winter Hamster Wheel topic in the idle Northern Hemisphere Touring Bike rider's off season entertainment..

Carbonfiberboy 

Coming late to this discussion. I get the various options for cooking/eating. That's just preference, whatever.

But for sleeping well, I've always been a hiker. When I look to ultralight hiking gear, I look to what the PCT thru-hikers are using, because those folks define ultralight. They are always up on the latest gear. We backpack almost every September on the route where they'll spend the last few days of their 6 month hike, so we see the successful ones. Guess what? They all use tents and down bags. Why? They need to survive and that means keeping themselves, their gear, and their bedding dry. There's no reason a tent/bag combo can't be as light or lighter than other systems, while still being something you can use to shelter from the storm, for a couple days if necessary, with all your gear dry, you dry, your bedding dry, and also cooking while staying dry. I've spent days in the tent in the rain, both backpacking and bike touring.

Bike touring, our load on our tandem, including everything on the bike except water in the bottles, comes to about 40 pounds or 20 each. That includes a very nice liquid fuel stove and cook kit, all our clothing and spare gear for town, shelter, pump, bike spares, tools, etc. It actually pretty easy to tour or hike in luxury and safety and still be what is known as ultralight. Our clothing and camp gear will take us down to about 45° and raining in comfort either on the bike or in camp, down to 40° and raining and still be OK, just not having fun.

nun

"off season"?

Happy Feet

+1

My goal is to get out every weekend it is not raining for at least a good long day ride and to try out different ideas. I prefer to think of it as Research and Development season.

I was thinking about the food thing and again, so much depends on where you are touring. There are many routes up here where there is no store or cafe at the end of the day to nip into. Mostly you can count on at least one store during the day at some point so I usually have a days worth in my panniers. I have also never seen anyone keep leftovers overnight if they are bear aware. Even if you rope it up a tree the bears will still follow the scent to your general vicinity. At the same time I don't know anyone who checks their shoes for scorpions in the morning.

staehpj1

Here in the south, I'd rather tour in the winter than the summer. The "off season" is a great time to do the Southern Tier.

bmike

I'm looking forward to a few winter overnights this year... maybe a multi night if I can arrange the schedule.

DropBarFan

Myself neither but for someone already going raw it might be possible. Dried fruit, dehydrated veggies, nuts, lentil sprouts etc. I read about "poha" recently--it's Indian par-boiled/dried/flattened rice. Technically not raw but requires no cooking, just quick rehydrating. I also researched making freeze-dried foods at home, unfortunately no go there: equipment would cost $1,000's!

DropBarFan

Winter temps in deep South are usually more pleasant but there's always the risk of a cold snap w/freezing rain or whatnot. I sold a frame to a local guy (DC area) who said he didn't like touring in the summer. Yes it's hot, but in summer there's the luxury of long days. This winter I'm going to get some booties & see how they work for day rides at least.

staehpj1

A lot depends on where in the South you are and how cold tolerant you are.

Here in Tallahassee, and probably for a large portion of the Southern Tier, overnight lows don't too often get too far below freezing and daytime highs typically reach at least 50 F most days. At higher elevations it can get pretty cold overnight, but there isn't that much of the ST at high elevation and you can typically choose to camp lower where there are passes. On my February ST I had only one really cold night when I camped on top of a pass during a cold snap and I could have camped lower or gotten a room that one night. Even then, by mid morning it was pretty nice. There were a lot of other nights cool enough to have frost but the riding was pleasant in the morning.

Especially at higher elevations snow is possible, but it typically doesn't last. I did see a little snow on the ST, but it wasn't bad enough to be a hardship. If it had been bad I might have taken a day or maybe two off.

There was one fairly miserable day with hard rain, strong winds, and a 50 F or so high. We toughed it out but taking a day off would have been an option.

When I lived further north where it got colder I used booties when it got down into the teens and they worked well, but I never wished for them when I did the ST and doubt I'll ever use them here in Tallahassee.

As far as daylight hours... Going in February is much better than December in that regard. I know that we had plenty of daylight to suit me. Even on our 90-100+ mile days we had daylight in camp for a bit of relaxing and fixing dinner before turning in for the night. I was always ready to turn in when it got dark. That may have been less true in December.

bikemig 

There's nothing better than waking up in a campsite and making coffee and some breakfast. Dinner also makes the evenings more pleasant. I'm pretty indifferent about lunch on the road. I'd rather just snack all day when I'm riding than have a sit down meal. Plus the food choices aren't always that great in small towns. I think of cooking gear as adding to the pleasure of the trip rather than just added weight.

mdilthey

I spent all my spare change this week on mittens, a new winter air pad, lightweight snowboots with removable liners, and the biggest tires my frame can fit (29x3.00" in the front, 29x2.4" in the back on 30mm rims).

This winter... I'm touring.

nun

When I've made camp in the evening I usually don't want to ride somewhere to eat so being able to warm a tin of stew or soup I bought earlier and make a cup of tea or cook some of the couscous or ramen I always carry is nice. If I can walk to a restaurant I'll do that. I could get by on cold stuff and just water, but I often prefer something hot. The spec for my gear is to have it come in at 20lbs or less and to have the full functionality of the more common "loaded" set up so I carry a a cook set consisting of a mug, alcohol burner, 8oz of fuel, windscreen, spork, BIC lighter and a collapsible silicone cup.

andrewclaus

I've always been a hiker too. My PCT thru-hike in 2004 pretty much changed everything in my life, not only the way I pack. By the time I'd weathered the SoCal desert, spring melt in the Sierra, and the rains in the Cascades, I got pretty confident in my UL tarptent and down bag setup. As those changes filtered down into my bike touring, that completely changed as well.

nun

I've taken a lot of stuff from UL hiking, but often UL bicycle tourists carry less weight than many hikers because they have the bike and that can get them to civilization in a matter of hours where it might take a hiker days.

shipwreck

Haven't read the whole thread, just some random pages.

After going ultra light on lighter road bikes for a lot of trips, I decided to hang all four bags on my touring bike for my last two week ride.After loading all my gear, one entire front pannier was totally dedicated to food, while the other was nothing but cooking gear.
In the heartland, its possible to travel for several days on back roads never seeing anything other than a Casey’s.Its been hard to carry enough food with a truly ultralight setup, so I decided to go all out with the most comprehensive kitchen ive ever taken.

Carried a tent and hammock, used both.It was funny, my rig with four days worth of food and several liters of water was around 55 pounds.
Best trip Ive had.Everything learned from going really light, adding enough extra to make it feel like Glamping compared to some past trips.I packed for and reaped the benefits of my desired comfort level.
In the future, it may be more, or it may be less.I am not stressing over what anyone but me thinks about my gear.

robow

Hey Jason,
fried spam and eggs, now that's campin' !