Originally Posted by
HendersonD
I gave a lot of thought on how to handle food during a Transamerica ride and decided to go stove less. This was after reading a lot of postings about this very subject on these forums. In my upcoming two week trip I will get a chance to test this method by using a combination of cold soaking, ready to eat food, and stopping at restaurants.
while the ready to eat and restaurant thing is something that I do a lot, I am someone who just really likes a hot drink in the morning, especially if its cold, so I never regret taking my tiny Trangia nestled into a small aluminum pot (now nestled in a titanium large mug/ small pot / kettle with a lid thing. )
Especially now using this mug/pot/kettle thing with fold out handles and a lid with a handle, the size and weight is so little, even with some fuel in some sort of bottle, it's just so versatile to have it for a hot drink, or if really needed, to heat up some sort of basic food.
my wife and I rode across France about 4 years ago, and used it for coffee/tea regularly (every morning really) but only used it to heat up food once or twice just because where we camped those days there were no stores nearby and we always had backup meal stuff with us-pasta, a can of tuna or whatever.
while its great to reduce stuff, there are sometimes things that are worth carrying, especially on a long trip--but whatever works for you is the only real factor here.