With the exception of stoves the equipment you are asking about is a rapidly changing world of design innovations and marketing hype. You have to decide what characteristic are important to you.


For instance my current tent is aGolite Shangri-la solo. A very simple two pole A-frame tent that I did major alterations on. Golite no longer makes it and I don't see any other manufacturers producing a similar product, so I can'treally recommend it. But I can say what criteria I looked for in buying it (and altering it). Sit up head room for me is critical and that is at a minimum 1 meter or 40 inches. My Shangri-la is 45 inches at the peak. That criterium alone eliminates for me almost every free standing dome tent on the market. I am 73 inches tall and sleep with my legs straight out and feet and toes pointed most of the night often with an arm or and elbow raised past my head and I can't stand to have my face touching the tentwalls while sleeping. This leaves only a hand full of tents to choose from. I mostly through-camp on tour, seldom spending more than one night at a given campsite. The tent spends more time on the back of my bike than set up for sleeping. For me a one person tent provides all the width and area I need for this kind of camping and an A-frame tent provides more width than most solo designs. I want the tent to be lightweight (>1K), simple to set and quick to pack. Those are my criteria. They may not be yours and that's what you have to figure out.


If you read numerous threads and posts including a few current ones, you will find a substantial number of touring cyclists on this forum swear that alcohols stoves are the cat's meow for touring cyclists especially if you build you own. Itis almost a Jedi right of passage for some bikers when they successfully build and complete a tour with their own stove design. And I am included in those numbers with my own stove made out of used cat food cans (>2oz). I can give you a long list of alcohol attributes that fold perfectly into the touring life style. Yet for all the touring I have done and the months spent on the road, I am the only cyclist, the only camper, I have ever met who burns alcohol. The others, many with as much or more experience than I, seem to be eating just fine despite their ignorance of the ultimate truth concerning the culinary nirvana of ethanol fired cooking.


Make your informed choices and don't bestuck on them if they don't work out just perfectly. REI and MEC will always have another sale coming up. Having fun is just not that serious -- even serious fun.